Fighting without a cause
by Tostie
Summary: AU seventh year - Albus Dumbledore and the order of the Phoenix use an old ritual to summon a hero from another world. He isn't exactly what they had expected – (initial)indifferent!Harry – no slash – no Horcruxes
1. Arrival

**Read before reading:**

I have wanted to write this story for a while, but other things kept getting in the way. I got the basic idea from this fic (Harry getting summoned to another universe to fight Voldemort again after already having beaten him once) from another fic. Unfortunately I can't really remember to much about it besides the basic idea, So I don't know who wrote it or what it was called. If anyone knows that please send a PM so that I can give credit where it is due.

The universe were this fic is set is completely AU and the universe where Harry Potter is summoned from diverges into AU after Harry's fourth year (when he is 14). Harry will be summoned when he is seventeen so don't be surprised if he don't act like canon (at all). Horcruxes don't exist in either universe. The Harry in this fic will also be quite strong, but he will not be all powerful. So he will not just waltz through all the Death Eaters without a problem before bitch slapping Voldemort into the ground(would be amusing one-shot to write through). The deadly Hallows on the other hand will exist in both universes but their roles won't be rather minimal.

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**Summary: AU seventh year - Albus Dumbledore and the order of the Phoenix use an old ritual to summon a hero from another world. He isn't exactly what they had expected – (in****i****tial)indifferent!Harry – no slash – no Horcruxes**

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**Chapter one: Arrival **

_Friday 13 August 1997, Grimmauld Place_

Albus Dumbledore sighted tiredly as he observed the people gathered in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place. The people gathered here were some of the bravest people he had ever met, they were all part of an organisation he personally created and led. They were the order of the Phoenix, An organisation dedicated to the light that fights against the darkness of this world. Their current (and so far only) mission? To stop the dark lord Voldermort and his followers.

Unfortunately things weren't going to well. While it was true Voldemort had had been defeated and was forced into hiding for over fourteen years when he attempted to kill the Potter's first-born. He had managed to come back using a dark ritual at the end of the tri-wizard tournament. Not only that, but the one destined to kill him for good had also been killed shortly after the ritual. Heck if he hadn't had a spy within Voldemort's ranks then he wouldn't even have known about it.

At the moment the second war wasn't going well and moral was at all time low within the order. Several of its members had died already and they hadn't been able to do anything noteworthy lately. Not only that but recruitment had dropped to an all time low and among the members that were active few were willing to go on any of the more dangerous missions.

Dumbledore knew they needed someone they could rally behind. He himself had once held that role, but many of his order Started to hold him in a impossible high regard. Dumbledore knew he was often placed in such a high pedestal that many of the order thought he could fight the war himself.

Such an image was not as useful as some people might think. It would be better if the leader was something they could relate to then what they had with him. Besides his age was catching up with him. While he could still take out most opponents the fact remained that he was getting old and if kept fighting then surely sooner or later he would die.

It was not that he feared death, no death was just the next step in the grand adventure that is life, he was just afraid what would happen to the order if he were to fall. Once he died they needed a new leader, they needed someone young, someone they could relate to. Dumbledore had hoped the chosen one would have been the one to take that role when the time came, but he was dead and Dumbledore slowly started to lose hope. That was until he was contacted by one of his old students, a man named Percy Davies, an unspeakable who is working at the department of mysteries of the ministry of magic of England.

The man had found an old Diary of a witch named Minerva Prewett in the Unspeakable archives. The diary described how there was another dark lord in her time and that her situation was quite similar to the one Dumbledore was currently facing.

She had developed a ritual that was both equally brilliant as potentiality dangerous. The ritual was designed to summon a hero from another world that would be able to beat the resident dark lord.

The next entry in her diary had confirmed that the ritual had worked and that the man had come from a world quite similar to their own, but with some small changes. As it turned out the man had already faced and beat the dark lord in his own world and managed to quite easily neutralise the dark lord due to his experiences.

Dumbledore hoped to use this ritual, which was described in the book, for a similar purpose so that this dreadful war could end before it really escalated and everyone could be steered back to the path of the light.

After clearing his throat to get everyone attention, Dumbledore spoke up. ''Welcome everyone, I am sorry for this sudden meeting, but I have gained some key Intel from one of my contacts. Thanks to this information I have been able to develop a plan I wish to share with you.''

''Then get on with it, Albus.'' 'mad eye' Moodey said directly as his fake eye kept swirling in all directions.

''Ah, yes.'' Dumbledore said. ''I have received information on how to perform a ritual that will summon a hero that will greatly help our war effort.''

There was no way he was going to tell the order that if things went the same way, that the hero would strike down the dark lord. As then the hero would be placed on a pedestal that should be worshipped from a distance and not someone they will follow in battle.

''This information comes from a source that is quite reliable and I have already made the preparation for the ritual. I request that a portion of you assist me with this ritual and when the ritual is finished to stay behind and help me answer any question the hero might have. So any volunteers?''

The order members looked dubious toward each other at their leaders rather dubious idea, but in the end their fate in their leader prevailed and hands went up.

XxX

In the end quite a number of people had volunteered to help and after they had been informed on what their role would be in the ritual, the group moved to one of the larger unused rooms in the ancestral home of the Black's.

As Dumbledore said earlier he had already converted the room for the sake of the ritual. As such the room was completely bare except for the complex runic arrears that covered the room's floor

As everyone took their prearranged potions Dumbledore and several others started a Latin chant that Dumbledore had them memorise before they started.

As soon as the order started to chant a faint light started to emit from the runes that became brighter and brighter the longer they continued.

Then after several minutes of chanting the light suddenly became so bright that everyone had to shield their eyes.

When everyone could see properly again they saw that a young man, who couldn't be much older than seventeen was standing in the middle of the runic array.

He was wearing clothing that was clearly of Muggle origin. He had black hair that was trimmed in a short spiked style. He also had two notable scars on his face; One of them was a scar that was located on his forehead; it was shaped like a lightning bolt, the other one was a straight one, which started just above his left eye and ended a bit under it.

Another prominent feature on his face were his eyes. His emerald green right eye was something many of the orders thought looked very similar to one of their members, but it was his left one that caught most of the attention. That eye was green like the right one, but that was where the similarities ended. Unlike his emerald right, his left was more neon green and it was moving in every direction, even to the back of his head. It was clear that the eye was not a real one.

He also wore several rings, but it was a symbol on a stone of one of the rings that really caught Dumbledore's attention. It was a triangle, with a single vertical line in the middle and with a circle surrounding the line while keeping within the triangle.

''H-Harry?'' A stuttering Lily Potter asked.

''Well... fuck.'' The boy muttered after a moment.

XxX

'What the bloody hell was that?' Harry thought. He had no idea what happened, one moment he was just doing his daily routine and the next thing he knew he suddenly appeared in this room.

The most logical conclusion would be some kind of time-based Portkey, but that should be impossible. It was barely an hour ago that he had done his routine scan for any foreign magic on his person and he hadn't found anything and since then he hadn't seen anyone.

Then again the 'how?' didn't matter right now. No the important issue right now was 'why?' and 'who?' Knowing his luck (and his number of enemies out there) there was a distinct possibility that whoever brought him here would want to do him harm.

Thus the moment he became aware of his situation he immediately started to use his magical eye to take in his surroundings while at the same time using his magical senses to sense if they were any wards up.

Unfortunately he immediately sensed several powerful wards surrounding him, one which he recognised as an anti-Apparition ward. This combined with the fact he was seemingly surrounded would normally have at least lead to some mild panic.

That would have at least been so if Harry hadn't been so utterly shocked by who the people in the room were.

'They are supposed to be death!' Harry thought. 'Does that mean this is the afterlife or something? Am I death? No wait that is Mrs Dunbar, I know for a fact she is still alive and there is Emmeline Vance, I just spoke with her a couple of days ago.'

'Okay calm down and analyse the situation, Potter.' Harry thought as her mercilessly suppressed any emotions from surfacing by using his Occlumency training. 'Fact, even though I was stupid enough not to immediately draw my wand those people haven't attempt to hurt or subdue me. Fact somehow people I know to be both alive and death are gathered in the same room. Fact I travelled here by means unknown.'

Thinking about it for a moment Harry came to a horrifying conclusion. There was only one way people he knew to be death could be in the same room as living people … he had somehow travelled in time and this was in the past were they were all still alive.

Then Harry heard a woman's voice say his name. ''H-Harry,''

Turning his magical eye to the source of the sound Harry saw that it had been the redhead woman who he had classified as an unknown on his initial sweep of the room.

Now that he had taken more than a brief second to watch her he realised he in fact did recognise her, he had after all spoken countless hours with her using the ring he wore. Only this woman didn't look like the twenty one year old that appeared out of his ring, no this woman was at least in her mid-thirties …. yeah there went his time travel theory

''Well... fuck.''

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**Author Notes: **

Well this is it; the first chapter of Fighting without a cause (really need to come up with a better title). I know the chapter is short, but from now on the chapter will be longer (chapter 2 has a word count of 11k and from there on chapter will be somewhere between 4K-6K. Currently the first six chapters are written and I will try to update weekly.


	2. Getting the facts straight

**Chapter two: Getting the facts straight **

Harry Potter was sitting on a chair in what he recognised to be the kitchen of Grimmauld Place. He had only been in the ancestral house of the Blacks once before, but it was hard not to recognise the place even though it looked slightly better than the last time he had seen it.

He had his wand clutched tightly in his hand as his eyes kept roaming the room looking for any potential threats. While his face was completely neutral and emotionless, mentally he was frowning as he thought back as to how he came to sit here.

After the redhead's woman outburst things had quickly escalated, as more and more people started to shout things, trying to be heard over each other. And as typical in his life things went from bad to worse when the woman came at Harry with her arms wide and tears in her eyes.

In hindsight it was pretty obvious she wanted to hug him, but Harry only saw a possible threat move toward him and reacted with instincts that were honed trough countless battles. The woman had barely stepped two steps forward before Harry had drawn his wand and had fired a stunner.

This … hadn't been his brightest idea. Moments after he had pulled his wand and downed the woman, he was surrounded by angry, slightly shocked and armed witches and wizards who all had their wands trained at him.

This wasn't the greatest situation for Harry to be in, but he wasn't deterred. He had faced worse and survived, there was no way he was going down. Not after he survived the war.

With that in mind Harry moved in one fluid motion, he raised his wand in the air while going down on one knee, he then clenched his one real eye shut and fired a Lumos Maxima.

The result was as Harry expected, almost all of the people in the room used both their hands to shield their eyes from the sudden light in the before rather dark room. Unfortunately not everyone was affected as Harry was immediately forced to cast a shield charm to protect him from an incoming spell.

Glancing through his transparent shield Harry saw the caster was none other than the supposed deceased Auror Alastor 'mad eye' Moody.

''Enough!'' Dumbledore bellowed. ''Both of you lower your wands.''

Moody sharply glanced at Dumbledore while keeping Harry within his sights with his fake eyes, a silent communication seemed to pass between them and then after several moments of silent communication Moody reluctantly lowered his wand.

Harry too had too begrudgingly lowered his wand after he had seen Moody do it. He wasn't sure if that really was Dumbledore, but there was one thing he was positive of; this man too emanated the same feeling of authority and power that the Dumbledore he had known did when the situation called for it.

By now the order members had regained their sight for the most part and they clearly had heard their leaders words as they didn't aim their wands at Harry again, trough they still were looking at Harry cautiously.

Dumbledore coughed a bit uncomfortably, this was not how he had expected the first meeting with 'the hero' to go.

''I can see that we are all a bit stressed'' He said and Harry snorted.

'Oh that was Dumbledore all right, way to state the obvious.' Harry thought.

''I suggest we all adjourn to the kitchen so that we all can sit down and talk peacefully about all this.''

Harry thought about it for a split moment, but in the end his need for information had won out on any other argument in his head. Especially since they hadn't attempt to take his wand.

''Lead the way.'' He had said as he made sure he didn't have to many people behind him.

And so now here he was sitting at a table facing a bunch of people who looked like they have seen a ghost (which shouldn't be too surprising for them). Harry wondered what he should do. He was outnumbered and in an unknown situation.

He briefly considered indulging his Gryffindor impulses, but he quickly squished those thoughts as he thought back to his first lesson from Professor Bell and more importantly one of his more important life lessons.

XxX

_Harry Potter sat in __his first lesson of the elective that had been introduced this year. The elective was officially called Additional Defence Lessons but most people already just referred to it as ADL._

_The class was filled with fifth years of all four the houses. Through the __Slytherin__ house was vastly u__n__der represented compared to the other houses. _

_Then the teacher came in. He had been introduced during the opening feast, his name was John Bell, a retired Auror, and now that Harry saw him up close Harry had to reconfirm his earlier opinion about the man's appearance. He just barely looked better than Moody. Is this what all the retired Aurors look like?_

''_Okay listen up,'' The man barked. ''Welcome to your first lesson of the new elective Additional D__e__fence Lessons, I know the name is dumb, but I didn't come up with it, so don't complain.'' He said in a no nonsense tone. ''My name is John Bell, but to you I will be either Mister or Professor Bell.''_

_He surveyed the class for a moment seemingly taking in each student before starting speaking again. ''The mi__n__istry of Magic has created this class to better prepare you for the threat that is Voldemort and his fo__l__lowers.'' _

_Harry perked up at this. The fact that the man said the name defiantly earned him some points in Harry's book. That the new course was implemented by the Ministry was also interesting. Harry brie__f__ly wondered if the same would have happened if Fudge hadn't been kicked out of office._

_After a moment of silence professor Bell spoke up again. ''If it was up to me I would make this course mandatory for all students of all years off all houses and triple the hours, but unfortunately, your headmaster thinks you should enjoy your childhood and not think too much about the war….'' The man sighted heavily. ''Not to speak ill of my colleagues, but I think this is complete idiotic. Neither death eaters nor their master will care about age nor gender, if they target you then you need to be as prepared as possible ….that will be my job this year. ''_

_Harry had to agree with the man there. Even if he indirectly insulted Dumbledore there was definitely truth in his words. How stupid was it to not make sure all the students could defend themselves now that Voldemort was back?_

''_Now,'' He said as his eyes swept over all the students. ''Who can tell me what the most important thing in any battle is?'' Several hands went up and the man said. ''Yes, you Weasley.''_

''_To be stronger than you opponent?'' Ron Weasley half answered, half asked._

''_To be stronger than you opponent …'' The man repeated ending with a slight snort. ''What strength? physical strength? Magical strength? No, strength alone is useless. You can be as magically powerful as Merlin, but if you are slow as hell or if you aim is shit then all the strength in the world won't help you. Someone else,'' The hands went up again. ''Yes, you Abott.''_

''_Uhm to have greater numbers then you opponents?''_

''_Good try.'' The man admitted. ''Even when facing a far superior opponent if you outnumber them you can pull of different strategies that will lead to victory, but like with power it is not the most i__m__portant thing.'' As the hands went up again the man pointed one out. ''Patil, what do you think._

''_Knowledge sir,'' Padma answered. ''If you know more spells than your opponents then you can win.''_

''_Partially correct Ms Patil.'' The man replied. ''I am sure everyone has heard of the saying 'knowledge is power.' In a fight magical knowledge is very important. So are there for example shield spells than can be used to shield yourself against specific spells, but are useless against others. Those shield are usually less taxing on our magical reserves, but if you identify the incoming curse wrong then you shield will be useless. Thus the need for knowledge, but it is far more than that. Having information on your opponent is just as important. Facing a unknown is far more dangerous than facing an opp__o__nent of whom you know things, like for example most people regardless of how much knowledge they have tend to favour certain spells. If you know what this spell is then you are less likely to be caught off guard. it's the same when you look at it at a grander scale. How do you expect to make a proper strategy if you don't know your enemies numbers, if there are wards and how skilled your opponents are?''_

_The teacher was silent for a moment giving his student a moment to absorb his word, he then pointed his wand at one of the cabinets and with a swing of his wand the doors opened and several copies of the same book flew out of it and a copy landed on each of the students tables._

''_Now as I said gathering intelligence is important, but at the same time counterintelligence is just as important. The magical world knows several ways to get information from a person. Most of you probably know about truth potions, but there is a magical art that is far more subtle than that. It's called Legilimency, to put it in the simplest term a user of Legilimency can read someone's mind. It's a bit more complicated than that, but due our lack of time let's keep it at that. There is chapter in the book I gave you which will explains it in a bit more detail so read that during your own time.''_

_Harry was shocked. 'mind reading? you have to be kidding me?' _

''_The opposite of Legilimency is Occlumency. A trained user of Occlumency has better control of his emotions, can shield themselves against users of Legilimency and can to some extend withstand truth potions and mind-altering potions. To become a skilled user of Occlumency you have to do a lot of exercises which again can be found in the book. There is little I can do to help you with this other than to test you occasionally.''_

''_Now to master the art will take years, sometimes even decades, but I can assure you the results will be more than worth it. I can understand most of you will not like hearing that you have to learn som__e__thing that will take years, but you have to realise that mastering the art isn't important right now. What important now is putting up some basic shield around your mind, which should be possible for most people within a couple of months.'' _

_Hermione put her hand up and Bell said. ''Yes, Granger?''_

''_If I may ask Professor, why are basic shields so important, will they be able to protect us against a Legilimens?''_

''_It's doubtful that basic shield will protect you against any person with some measure of skill in the mind arts, but you have to realise that Legilimency is even harder than Occlumency and most practi__c__es never get past the fledgling status. Those are people who are strong enough to enter unguarded minds, but can't get past even the most basic shield.'' _

XxX

After remembering that specific lesson Harry decided on his plan. As long as those people didn't act hostile he would try to get as much information as possible.

''So ... I have been patient old man.'' Harry said as he addressed Dumbledore. ''Now can you 'please' tell me why the fuck I am surrounded by people who should, as you so elegantly would put it be on their next great adventure.''

Dumbledore blinked in surprise before giving the boy his patented grandfatherly smile. ''I can assure you my boy everyone in this room is very much alive.'' He then remembered that the diary described how the two worlds while similar had differences so maybe the world where the boy came from he knew the people here and they had all died? ''I don't know if you know who I am, but my name is …''

''I know who you are, Dumbledore.'' Harry interrupted.

''Then I am afraid you have me at a disadvantage my boy. You know my name, but I don't know yours.'' Dumbledore said, although he had a very strong suspicion who he was, he just didn't understand how it was possible. It was also the reason why he had asked James to stay with Lily outside of the room. Until he could ascertain the exact details about the young man it would be better if they weren't there, Lily especially might get too emotionally distraught. It wouldn't help the upcoming conversation any if some of the participant were too emotional to contribute.

Harry narrowed his eyes. ''What year is it?'' he asked, not willing to part with his time travel theory yet.

If the abrupt change of topic surprised Dumbledore then he didn't show it. ''It's 1997, my boy, the thirteenth of August.''

'Well there goes what is left of my time travel theory.' Harry thought although this still didn't explain why Dumbledore didn't know him or why death people were alive.

''My name is Harry Potter.'' Harry answered before asking a question of his own. ''Do you know how I got here?''

Before Dumbledore could answer, Sirius Black spoke up. ''Harry... is that really you?''

Harry had no idea what to say. He had no idea what the fuck was going on. The man who had spoken to him bore a strong resemblance to his late godfather, although considerably healthier looking, but that wasn't possible Sirius was dead and buried. He made peace with that fact after he had spoken with the man's shade for several hours. So Harry wasn't too sure what to reply to this older and healthier looking version of his godfather.

Luckily for Harry, Dumbledore interjected before Harry had to answer. ''Now, Sirius I understand the need for information, but I am sure this is all very confusing for young Harry and it is probably for the best if I fist explain everything to him.''

Sirius didn't look too happy, but complied regardless.

''Excellent,'' Dumbledore said brightly, ''Now that we are all acquainted, why don't we all place our wands on the table, after all we have no reason to use magic on each other right?''

As a sign of good faith, he was the first to place the wand on the table in front of him and upon seeing it Harry's eyes widened before glancing down at the wand in his hand.

'I hadn't counted on that.' Harry thought, mentally analysing what this development meant for his status.

While Harry was thinking the others in the room started laying out their wands, some with some more hesitation that others, but after receiving imploring looks from the others they relented until finally Moody laid his wand on the table and all eyes turned to Harry again.

Harry understood that if he wanted to have a smooth conversation then he couldn't deny putting his wand away after the others already did it, so he relented and placed his wand at the table.

Dumbledore eyed the wand the boy placed on the table and his eyes widened dramatically when he saw the familiar wand.

Moody meanwhile used his magical eye to scan the boy and immediately noted that the boy was still far from unarmed even though he put the wand he had been holding away. Moody inwardly grunted in approval. If he had been in the boy's position he wouldn't have given all his weapons up either.

''Now where to start?'' Dumbledore said as he stroked his beard absentmindedly.

''Maybe how I got here would be a nice place to start.'' Harry said sarcastically.

''Ah yes, that would be a good place wouldn't it. Well basically we have some trouble facing a dark lord named Voldemort and we used a ritual to summon a hero from another world who could aid us in our noble cause.''

''Another world? As in an alternative universe?'' Harry exclaimed. ''That shit really exists outside of fiction?''

'Then again I shouldn't be too surprised.' Harry thought. He had stopped using the word 'impossible' a couple years into his magical education. Not to mention the fact that strange things tend to happen around him.

Besides this wasn't the first time he had heard of people arriving from another world. It supposedly had happened several times according to Wizarding legends. Then again according those legends things like soulbonds, magical animagus and mage sight also exists and as there is no proof of any of that so he never really put any stock in any of those legends.

The only reason he so easily recalled it was because Hermione had once mentioned that the Muggle world had something similar only they called it alternative universes.

''I am afraid I am not familiar with that term.'' Dumbledore admitted, bringing Harry out of his thoughts.

''It's a theory that a new universe is created for every choice that is made and anything that can happen will happen if not in this universe then in the next or the next …''

''Ah, maybe that is why you thought we were dead.'' Dumbledore replied after he took a moment to take in the information.

'' So you for all intend and purposes kidnapped me from my own universe to fight old snakeface …?'' Harry asked with an unnatural calm tone.

''Well …'' Dumbledore began before Harry's rant cut him off.

''Are you fucking insane?'' Harry bellowed, he knew he should control his emotions better, but this whole thing was just too much. ''I already fulfilled that shit prophecy once. Why don't you have the me of this universe do it?''

''You watch your mouth young man.'' A plump redhead woman said sternly.

Harry looked over to who said and his suspicions were confirmed. He had to resist the strong urge to curse the woman he had hoped to never see again. ''Oh, shut up Prewett.''

Harry knew that if this was truly an alternative universe then all the people he would meet could be completely different than what he was used to, still he couldn't help it; even if he knew that they were different people he still got certain feelings upon hearing and seeing certain people. And seeing that woman again certainly didn't bring up the most positive of emotions.

Molly huffed and probably would have gone on a full blown rant if Dumbledore hadn't given her a warning glance.

''If I understand it correctly you know of the prophecy and you managed to beat Voldemort?'' Dumbledore inquired.

''If you are talking about that prophecy that that dammed drunk gave then yes on both counts. Now again what happened to the me of this world that he can't handle the prophecy.''

No one answered, but they didn't have to. The looks on some of the people's faces were more than enough to come to a conclusion.

''He is dead.'' Harry deadpanned.

Some people looked like they got struck after Harry spoke so bluntly, but Harry didn't pay them any mind as he asked the question he honestly wasn't sure he wanted to know. ''So how did he die?''

Dumbledore sighted heavily. ''I am afraid Mr Potter was captured during the third task of the Tri-wizard tournament.''

'Yeah … end?' Harry thought. That answer had been hardly satisfactory. After all he had been kidnapped to, but he managed to escape.

Harry sighted, it seemed clear that this Dumbledore was as bad as his Dumbledore in giving vague and short answers. Harry thought about it for a moment before deciding that if he wanted something he had to give something. ''Okay it is clear that our histories are different why don't we compare some key events in my and your Harry's life for comparison.''

Dumbledore nodded; learning about the history of the rather vulgar young man might give him some insight in his personality.

''What happened here on Halloween 1981?'' Harry started.

''You, ehh our Harry Potter managed to survive and reflect a killing curse cast by Voldemort, resulting in him being reduced to a wraith until he was revived in 1995.'' Dumbledore said.

Harry rolled his eyes. He could have figured that out himself. Why else would Voldemort kidnap his alternative self? No, the question was how did the boy's parents survive?

''How did he reflect the curse?'' Harry asked, ''Something similar happened in my universe, but in my universe my mother used blood magic and sacrificed herself to save me. So if my mother didn't sacrifice herself then how did the curse rebound?''

Questioning why the parents of a version of him were alive while his weren't was probably not the most tactful thing to do, but Harry couldn't find it in himself to care. Those people for all intent and purposes kidnapped him and the only reasons why he hadn't started to curse everything in sight was, because A) he was vastly outnumbered and B) they held all the information and as long as they kept talking he would try to refrain from doing something stupid.

As it turned out nobody really knew how this Harry survived. Apparently the Lily Potter of this world had been pregnant at the time and due a complication had to go to the hospital on Halloween and Harry had stayed behind at Godrics hallow with someone from the order who knew the secret of the Fidelius Charm.

When the ward alerted James Potter that someone had penetrated them. He immediately sped home. What he found was; a dead order member, his baby-boy with a bleeding scar and a wand and robe who were later identified as Voldermort's and so similar to Harry's own universe the legend of the boy-who-lived was born, but that is where things started to change.

''So we both survive and Snakeface is reduced to a shade. That at the least is the same.'' Harry said. ''There I assume the changes begin. I was sent to the magic hating Dursleys and my dear godfather who everyone thought was the secret keeper couldn't control his anger and went after the traitor … this resulted in him getting a life sentence in Azkaban.''

Harry decided not to bother telling the whole story. He was only giving them information so that he could obtain information himself in case he couldn't get back. Besides the end result was the same Sirius had put his anger before his duty as godfather and paid the price.

Harry noticed that Sirius's eyes had widened dramatically when Harry told him about getting life sentence and Harry decided to ask the man a question. ''I take it you didn't go after the rat?'' he asked, truly curious. Even if the Potters were alive he just couldn't imagine Sirius letting a traitor go. The man was a bit of a hothead and would often allow his emotions to control him.

The woman next to Sirius, who Harry recognised as Emmeline Vance snorted and said. ''Like I would ever allow him to do such a foolish thing.''

''You won't allow him, Ms Vance?'' Harry asked with a raised brow.

''Mrs Black, actually and no there was no way I was going to allow him to go around and do foolish things leaving me behind while I was high pregnant.''

Harry's eyes widened dramatically. 'Okay, Potter relax.' Harry thought fanatically. So what if you have been send to an alternative universe where you counterpart is dead, so what if the parents of this universe survived, he could handle all that, but the thought of any form of Sirius settling down and getting married and being a father …. madness …. plain madness.

Harry shook his head briefly to regain his wit. He decided as the world apparently hadn't ended he should just continue and think about this madness later. ''Anyway as I was saying, after my parents dead and my godfather's imprisonment I was sent to my mother's sister and her family. That is where I stayed, ignorant of my heritage until I was eleven and received my Hogwarts letter.'' He then felt silent waiting expectedly for Dumbledore to continue on his side.

"Mr Potter along with his sister Rose and his parents stayed in Potter manor until it was time for him to go to Hogwarts. Nothing of note happened in that time.'' Dumbledore said before continuing on to the boy's first year. '' In his first year Mr Potter was sorted into the Gryffindor house, became the youngest seeker in a century, and helped me stop Voldemort from stealing a powerful artefact.''

Harry then noticed something due to seeing it for years it took a couple of times for him to realise. Every time Voldemort was mentioned almost everyone shuddered. This has become so normal that Harry ignored it without thinking about it, but then he realised the name was actually being said. He hadn't heard the name since halfway through his fifth year!

''Wait,'' Harry interrupted, drawing attention to him. ''I just notice you keep saying Voldemort, does that mean there is not an taboo on his name here?''

''He placed a taboo on his name?'' Dumbledore said looked intrigued and if Harry read the emotion correct slightly impressed. Harry nodded and Dumbledore continued. ''That is a very impressive piece of magic and also a potentiality very dangerous. I can only assume his name became even more feared.''

Harry nodded solemnly it was definitely dangerous. ''Several people were killed before someone figured out we couldn't say his name.''

Dumbeldore lowered his head it was always a waste if blood was spilled needlessly.

''So what happened to Hermione Granger?'' Harry asked as facing a troll was apparently not part of the accomplishment of his counterpart.

McGonagall spoke up this time. ''Ms Granger was critically injured on Halloween eve by a troll. We never managed to find out why she was there as Ms Granger wasn't saying anything other than she wanted to go home. Such a waste too, she was a brilliant witch and had great potential.''

Harry felt sick in his stomach at hearing that and he had to tell himself several time that was not the same girl as his best friend, but whatever he told himself he couldn't suppress the image his imagination provided of entering the girl's bathroom a bit too late and seeing a first year Hermione getting brutally assaulted by a troll. His mind then briefly flashed to the memory of the small ceremony that was held at Militia HQ in Hermione's memory after her death.

After a moment he managed to gathered his thoughts and told about his first year. ''Like him I was sorted in Gryffindor and joined the Quidditch team as a seeker. On Halloween eve when we were warned that a troll wasn't in the castle I noticed that Hermione wasn't there and went to warn her with a friend, we managed to get her out of there and to the tower before she was harmed.'' This was technically the truth she wasn't harmed after all and saying that you faced down a troll at age 11 usually resulted in disbelief or fear so it was better if he left that out.

Harry thought a bit what to tell next. Nothing of interest really happened until Christmas when he received his invisibility cloak and found the Mirror of Erosad and there was no way in hell he was going to talk about the mirror. Then again that was his eleven year old deepest desire Harry doubted if he saw the mirror again he would see the same thing.

That only left his encounter with Voldemort so he told him about that. He told them about he and two friends passing the 'dangerous' traps and about his confrontation with Voldemort at the end.

Dumbledore took everything thing he heard from the young men. Despite being rather vulgar so far the young man definitely could be moulded in a proper champion of the light. Especially if he too confronted Voldemort while he was just an eleven year old child.

''So what happened in his second year?'' Harry asked.

Dumbledore thought about it for a moment before answering. ''Not much happened in Mr Potter second nor third year. Young Harry found that one of his friends was acting weird since she started writing in a diary that was unknowingly a dark artefact and reported it before his second year began. We destroyed the artefact shortly after that.''

Harry's eyes widened briefly at hearing this before he managed to reign his emotions in. If he understood the situation correctly then the chamber of secrets was never opened. That means the Basilisk was still there … A basilisk who would follow the command of any speaker. Well at least he should, Harry never had the opportunity to command a magical snake before so he wasn't sure if those would react differently.

Harry knew that there was a distinct possibility Dumbledore either would not know or wouldn't tell how he could get home so having an ace in the hole like this was definitely an advantage if he had to stay here for a longer time. At the very least he now had a place very few people could enter.

''That friend, I assume you mean Ginny?'' Harry asked.

Dumbledore nodded solemnly. ''Can I assume that something similar happened where you came from.''

''Something similar yes,'' Harry agreed. ''It took a bit longer and the diary managed to influence Ginny a bit which resulted in several students having to go to the hospital wing, but in the end the diary was destroyed and no permanent damage was done.''

If Harry had learned one thing then it was that it was much easier to just tell half-truths then outright lie. So he was definitely proud of the little story he managed to spin which was one hundred per cent the truth, while only giving away what he wanted.

''What about Lockart did he teach in the 1992-1993 year?'' Harry asked curious what happened to the man who in his universe had lost his memory when he was forced to go with him and Ron to the Chamber of Secrets.

''Professor Lockart did indeed teach that year, but he felt he had other responsibilities and left at the end of that year.''

Harry inwardly snorted at hearing that. He was amazed that the man would leave on his own, but there was a distinct possibility he didn't want to get connected to the low NEWT and OWL scores that were most likely scored that year.

Deciding he had nothing to hide about his third year Harry decided to go first this time. ''Before my third year Sirius escaped Azkaban. It was widely suspected that he wanted to kill me, so the ministry in its infinite wisdom decided to place Dementors around Hogwarts to guard it.'' Harry said before muttering ''Nasty little buggers … nearly killed me …. guarding my ass.''

''No offence Mr Potters, but Dementors don't kill.'' Dumbledore who clearly had heard Harry's muttering replied.

Harry snorted. ''Not directly no, but thanks to those things I fell 50 feet from my broom.''

''Is something funny?'' Harry asked with a raised eyebrow as one of the order members he didn't recognise had snorted after Harry's previous statement.

''Yeah you, if you are incompetent on a broom then don't blame it on a Dementor.''

''You try stay on a broom when Dementors are practically flying next to you and you are forced to relive the last moments of your parents. To hear how your parents are mercilessly murdered!'' Harry snapped back. He didn't know who this man was, but he wasn't going to be insulted like that.

If the man was bothered by Harry's outburst then he did a damn good job of not showing it as he merely stared blankly back.

Dumbledore coughed to break the rather awkward silence that had descended upon the kitchen. '' And did the Dementors manage to capture Mr Black?'' He asked.

Harry shook his head. ''No, they stayed the entire year, but when they nearly sucked the soul out of a student at the end of year, the Ministry decided now was finally a good idea to remove them.''

Dumbledore nodded. ''That is good, I am glad those vile creatures were never placed here at Hogwarts. As for our Mr Potter third year … well like I said not much happened, Peter Pettigrew managed to escape Azkaban in the summer before Mr Potter's third year, but no one believed he would come after Mr Potter so they didn't place any guards at Hogwarts. Other than that nothing of interest happened that year.''

''What about his fourth year? I assume he also was chosen as the fourth champion?'' Harry asked as he noticed allot of people had stiffened as he asked this.

Dumbledore stroked his beard and his eyes darkened. ''Yes, I am afraid so, Crouch Jr managed to fool everyone and infiltrate the castle looking as our DADA teacher of that year. He entered Mr Potter in the Goblet of Fire so that he would be chosen as the fourth champion. He then had to take part of the three tasks I am sure you know of…''

''Four,'' Harry interrupted.

''I beg your pardon?'' Dumbledore questioned.

''The tournament had four tasks,'' Harry replied before elaborating. ''I had to get past a dragon, swim in the freezing cold lake, navigate through a maze which resulted into my kidnapping and last but certainly not least … I had to ask a girl to the Yule ball.''

Harry nearly snorted at his own words. Now not even a couple of years later he could barely believe he would have rather done a repeat of the first task then ask a girl for a date. Oh how easy had his life been back then.

''You were kidnapped too Mr Potter?'' Dumbledore questioned, curious how the boy survived, Voldemort was not known for his mercy.

''Ah,'' He replied positively. ''I'm sure pretty much the same thing happened in our two universes. Crouch entered me, I competed in the three task and the tri-wizard cup was a portkey that transported me to the graveyard were snakeface got resurrected.''

''And how did you escape?''

Harry shrugged. ''Voldemort couldn't be allowed to look weak in front of his followers so he challenged me to a duel.'' Harry chuckled darkly. ''I was complete and utterly outclassed back then.''

This statement was true in so many ways it wasn't even funny. He was already injured, he was magically inferior, he was vastly outnumbered and most importantly even if he had the knowledge Harry wasn't sure his younger counterpart would have been ready to kill.

''Anyway, at one point our wands connected due to Priori Incantatem and let's just keep it surprised that bastard enough that I could reach the cup and return back. To this day I still have no idea why that idiot Crouch Jr. made that portkey two-way, but I am definitely not going to complain.''

Harry paused for a moment to gather his thoughts before continuing. ''When I arrived back at Hogwarts I immediately informed Dumbledore who informed Fudge , who being his typically bumbling self refused to accept the truth and was ready to write us off as liars and scaremongers, ''

Dumbledore nodded, the same thing had happened when his spy had informed him the Potter boy was dead and Voldemort had returned and he had conveyed this news to the Minister.

''Unfortunately for the idiot, several of his colleagues were with him and they heard Dumbledore inform him and they didn't agree with shushing everything up, especially so shortly after the first war. From what I have heard it didn't take long before Fudge had alienated himself enough for his inaction that a vote of no confidence was called and he was kicked out of his office. Minister Bones, former head of the DMLE was chosen as his successor.''

''Really?'' Dumbledore questioned sounding intrigued. Regardless of the situation he couldn't help find this entire story very fascinating. To hear about a world so similar yet so different was definitely a unique experience. How one small change could change things so much.

Harry nodded, ''So from what I gathered my counterpart didn't survive the kidnapping? Any idea how?''

Dumbledore shook his head. ''I am afraid not, a spy within Voldemort's ranks managed to inform me that young Harry was killed, but he wasn't there at the time so he doesn't know exactly what happened.''

''So no body was recovered?'' Harry asked as the cause of death might have been able to guess by an autopsy.

''Unfortunately not, no.''

Harry hummed. ''What about this spy? Snape by any chance?''

''That is Professor Snape, Mr Potter.'' Dumbledore replied a reply which Harry had heard so often it wasn't even funny. ''But, yes you are correct Professor Snape risks his life daily to spy for the light.''

'Well that is different,' Harry thought, 'I can't wait until I tell him about my fifth year.''

''Anyway, after professor Snape informed me of Voldemort's resurrection I informed minister Fudge and unfortunately I didn't have the same luck as you had. My position was already not too good as the boy-who-lived had died under my watch, so the people easily believed fudge when he said I was lying. Voldemort hasn't been seen in public since then, instead he is mostly doing things hidden, but his presence can be felt in the recent laws. So is it for example now allowed to own Muggle as 'pets','' Dumbledore said with a hint of disgust in his voice. From what we can gather Voldemort spend most of his time these last two years, recruiting and planning for the upcoming battles.''

Harry felt something stir when he heard about what was allowed to happen to Muggles. While his so called 'saving people' thing had mostly disappeared over the years, it was still hard for him to hear about innocents getting hurt.

''I guess I will continue then.'' He said after a moment of silence. ''Not much changed at first. The ministry insisted implementing a new course in Hogwarts called Additional Defence Lessons, our Dumbledore didn't want us 'children' to be too involved with the war and was opposed to the course, but eventually compromised and allowed the subject to be an elective instead of the Core one the ministry wanted.''

''Well obviously the headmaster is right children should not involve them with such things.'' Molly Weasley exclaimed.

Harry glared at the witch, but decided not to bother with a verbal reply. ''Anyway that changed after the first Hogsmead visit.''

''Why, what happened?'' Dumbledore questioned with dread filling his stomach.

Harry's eyes shadowed over as a dark memory resurfaced. ''The massacre of Hogsmeade is what happened.'' He spat out.

Almost too afraid to ask, Dumbledore asked. ''What do you mean?''

Harry's voice turned cold and emotionless as elaborated ''The Death Eaters along with a group of Demontors attacked Hogsmeade and started killing anyone in sight.''

The order felt silent, Voldemort might be their enemy, but never did they think he would sink so low as to target children at such a large scale.

Not noticing the change in atmosphere Harry's whose eyes had turned hollow as he just stared ahead, continued as memories flashed through his mind.

''They completely caught us by surprise.''

_Harry stared completely aghast as a large number of Death Eaters started streaming into the village and started firing curses at anything that moved, a familiar cold he hadn't felt since the end of his third year started to fill his body. Hermione who had been standing close by him shook him and e__x__claimed. ''We need to get everyone to the castle!''_

''So many died.''

_Harry and a couple of other students were running towards the castle when they came upon a truly sickening sight of a group of youngers years who looked like they had been hit with a cutting curse multiple times and left to bled to dead._

"One of my best friends died as he was escorting a couple of third years back to the castle.''

''_I am sorry Mr potter, but we found Mr Weaseley's body. He was found a top a third year students in one of the collapsed secret tunnels. It looks like he tried to shield him.''_

"I lost my eye that day,''

''_I am sorry Mr Potter there is nothing I can do for you. Even with you putting up a shield, the bac__k__slash of the curse was bad enough to permanently damage your eye. I am sorry, but you will never see with that eye again.''_

'And what was left of my innocence,' He mentally added.

A silence felt over the room as everyone took in what Harry had told them. Many not sure what to think.

Harry too had to take a moment to gather his thoughts to. Talking about the massacre again had brought fourth memories he had tried to surpass a long time ago.

''After that things changed …. It was shown that Voldemort had no qualms attacking children so we were taught what to do if it happened again, ADL among other things became mandatory for everyone.''

Harry felt silent for a moment as a bitter expression crossed his face as he talked about the additional training. It was never confirmed, but many people suspected that the ones who later would form the Elder Council were responsible for pushing those new educational degrees trough.

''Another consequence of that attack was much severe,''

Many gulped wondering what the boy would dump on them next.

''That day it was shown that no place was truly safe, not even the town right next to Hogwarts. So many people who were concerned that Diagon Ally would also turn into a battlefield sooner or later went to Gringgrotts and emptied their vaults so that they didn't have to go there any time soon. ''

Some people paled while other wondered why this was classified as a severe consequence.

''Now can someone tell those who like me couldn't stay awake during history of magic why this was a very bad idea?''

''Because it breaks one of the clauses of the treaty made after the latest Goblin rebellion. '' Dumbledore said gravely. ''War costs money so the Goblins added a clause that basically stated if suddenly large amounts of money were moved away from Gringrotts then they would consider it an act of war.''

''And that is exactly what they did … they gave ultimatum either return fifty per cent of the money recently taken within seven days or war.'' Harry snorted derisively. ''As if the ministry had the recourses to spare to force people to return their money.''

''So the Goblins rebelled again?'' One of the order members asked.

Harry snorted again. ''Rebelled? They did a bit more than that. Do you even know what a force they have hidden away in Gringrotts?'' He asked mockingly. ''When the seven days were up they marched out of the bank and right to the ministry of magic. It took them a mere three hours to bring the governing body of the magical UK to its knees. ''

'Okay it might have taken them longer if all the Aurors were in the building instead of out the field, but still that was pretty pathetic.' Harry thought.

''Minister Bones died fighting the Goblins, but several members of the Wizengamot survived and formed our new government body, the Elder Council.''

''Indeed?'' Dumbledore said looking intrigued.

Harry nodded. ''Things from there on didn't really improve, the council rallied whatever recourses she still had and tried to make a difference, the Goblins were apparently not satisfied yet and declared open war on all wizards and witches in the UK, luckily this also included Voldemort and his followers, in essence the Goblins became a third party in the conflict. And then there was Voldemort, it seemed he considered the Goblins a bigger threat now that the ministry had fallen and had focused most of his time on them. That of course didn't mean he didn't stop killing any Auror they could find.''

''And the Muggles?'' Dumbledore asked.

''Luckily no side in the war was stupid enough to blatantly break the statute of secrecy. Thing would really have gotten fucked up if the Muggles had joined the war too.''

''Why is that?'' One of the order members Harry didn't recognise asked.

''You are a pureblood aren't you?'' Harry asked upon which he received a nod. ''To put it simply for Muggles to join the war, the statute of secrecy had to be broken.'' He said before adding with a slightly mocking tone. ''You do now why we went into hiding and the statute was implanted, right?'' When he didn't immediately answer Harry continued. ''Wizerdkind was nearly exterminated during the witch-hunts if we hadn't gone in hiding then there is a distinct chance that neither of us would be here. So if Muggles with seventeenth century technology could do that then how do you think their late twentieth century's counterpart will do?'' He asked rhetorically.

''Then what about you-know-who?'' Another order member asked. ''He believes in pureblood supremacy, he would never accept that Muggles could pose a threat to him.''

''Say what you want about the man, but he isn't stupid. A mad man, yes, but not stupid.'' Harry replied before muttering. ''mostly at least.'' And then returned to normal volume. ''We are a completely hidden community with only a few Muggles knowing about us and those are closely watched, why would any sane person give up that advantage? straight-out fighting a force that far outnumber you will get you killed no doubt, but why would he if he can remain hidden?''

Harry looked around the room looking each member in the face. '' imperius curse, compulsion charms, Apparition, Portkeys, Metamorphmagi, polyjuice potions, invincibility cloaks …. Those are only a couple of things wizards have that could allow us to pit Muggles against each other without showing ourselves. So again why would Voldemort give up such an advantage if he doesn't have to?''

Harry didn't expect an answer so he didn't even wait for one. ''Now where was I, ah yes, a couple of months into my fifth year.'' Harry said. ''Well despite the turmoil outside of the walls things inside Hogwarts were relatively calm. Unfortunately things couldn't stay that way for long and that was proven when newly marked Death Eater, Draco Malfoy used a vanishing cabinet, he managed to repair and brought a numbers of Death Eaters into the castle and thus began the first battle of Hogwarts…''

''A student let Death Eaters into the school?'' One of the order members muttered in disbelief.

''Fortunately for us the Death Eaters were arrogant and attacked in the middle of the day. We, the students had been training for months and were more than prepared for them. Unfortunately there was another Death Eater in the castle who used the moment of confusion to backstab Dumbledore …'' Harry directly looked at Dumbledrore as he spoke the next couple of words. ''Severus Snape killed Albus Dumbledore, took his wand and left the castle before anyone could stop him.''

Dead silence followed Harry's statement before Sirius shouted out.

''I know he couldn't be trusted that slimy slytherin!''

''Enough Sirius,'' Dumbledore rebuked. ''Mr Potter already explained that there would be differences between our two universes, apparently Severus betrayal is one of them.''

Harry mentally snorted at hearing this, a good Snape, regardless of what universe sounds just as likely as Sirius settling down … 'oh right that happened here, damn this place is messed up.'

''Anyway after the rather humiliating lose the Death Eaters suffered, Voldemort gave us a week of 'rest' before he himself with a considerable larger army stood before the gates of Hogwarts. This time it was soon proved we were way outclassed and quickly the order to evacuate using the hidden passages out of Hogwarts was given.'' Harry said

After a moment of gathering his thought Harry continued, ''After the second battle of Hogwarts and the subsequent surrender of the castle the Council of Elders immediately drafted a new law.'' Harry said with distinct distaste in his voice. ''That law stated that every witch and wizard old enough to carry a wand had to join the newly formed militia or be considered an enemy of the nation. Unfortunately many of the older population had long since gone into hiding under some of the most powerful wards they could afford. ''

It didn't take long for the people in the kitchen to understand what Harry said and an aghast order member said. ''They forced children to fight?''

A dark look crossed Harry's face before he answered. ''Those who survived the massacre and the two battles of Hogwarts …. Yes. All of us were divided into teams and were send out into the field. '' Harry snorted. ''Most of us ended up with people our age fighting in the front lines … those old bastards saw us as nothing more than cannon fodder…. after all Witches and Wizards can have children for a much longer time then Muggles so the 'wise' elders deemed that the older and wiser people were more important than the younger generation.''

''Why didn't you and the other students just go into hiding?''

Harry snorted as he turned his attention to the woman who had asked the question.

''Tell me, do you know those lovely little runic bracelets you can put on children that have the tendency to wander. The ones which allows you to track them down?''

Unsure where he was getting to the woman merely nodded.

''Shortly after the council's decree was passed they ordered the Aurors they still had to enter the safe house that the we had gone to after the second battle of Hogwarts and literally branded the runes that are on those bracelets on our skins. Those old farts were able to track us everywhere with that so hiding was a bit impossible.''

''Do you mind showing it,'' A woman Harry recognised as Professor Babbling, the Ancient Runes professor of Hogwarts asked. ''I am sure you don't have the nicest memories associated with and I might be able to remove it.''

Harry shook his head as he pulled his right sleeve of his t-shirt up, showing a previous hidden tattoo of a multithreaded beast. ''You don't have to worry about that, most of us had a tattoo placed over it. It might have not stopped the effects of the runes, but at least we didn't have to look at it.''

There was also the fact that those runes are still possibly connected to his own universe. Harry honestly doubted it as the runes weren't even remotely close designed for that , but there was always a chance.

There was a moment of silence before Dumbledore spoke up again ''May I enquire who your teammates were?'' he questioned as he was curious what kind of people the boy had been surrounded with. It might give him some more insight in his character.

A wry smile graced Harry's face. ''I was chosen to lead a six men team, when the war ended besides myself my team consisted of Astoria Greengrass, Fay Dunbar, Seamus Finnigan, Susan Bones and Clara.''

Dumbledore recognised the first four names, how could he not? He could easily remember the students of Hogwarts he had met past and present. Only the last name didn't ring a bell. Sure over the years he had met several 'Claras', but non who was around the boy's age like the others.

''Clara, Mr Potter?''

Harry shrugged. ''That is what she introduced herself as. She never gave her last name, heck I am not even sure if that really is her first name anyway.''

''How old was she?'' Dumbledore asked, thinking maybe he could discover who she was that way.

Harry immediately shuddered as if recalling some very bad memory. ''She was a vampire so it was near impossible to guess her age … and she didn't appreciated it when she was asked how old she was.''

''You had a vampire as a teammate?''

Harry nodded, the council struck a deal with the covens of the UK. They would give us manpower and we would give them any prisoners we obtained after we were done with them.''

''That is barbaric!'' One of the order member exclaimed.

''Is it?'' Harry questioned. ''Vampires are sentient being who need blood to survive. They will do what is necessary to survive. So what is wrong with allaying with them. Would it be better if they allied themselves with the Death Eaters and we were the ones who were getting fed on?''

''Uh Mr Potter?'' Mrs Dunbar spoke up after a moment of silence. ''Did my daughter survive the war? Is she okay?''

Harry's first reply would have been that the girl he had been fighting alongside with was not her daughter, but saying that to her face proved harder than he had expected. The Mrs Dunbar in his world had been a healer that had helped him and his team more times than he could count. Officially she had been to qualified to be assigned to the Militia and the council had wanted to assign her as a healer to the Auror forces, but Mrs Dunbar had put her foot down that she would be allowed to treat her daughter and her team or no one at all.

So to put it mildly Harry felt he owned that woman allot not only for saving his life a multiple of times, but also the lives of his teammates. Thinking about it for a moment Harry decided to just give her an answer.

''You have to understand Mrs Dunbar, the Fay I know is not your daughter, just like I am not the Harry Potter you might know. So whatever happened in my Universe doesn't have to happen here, but yes she survived.''

She survived alright, but that didn't necessarily mean that she was okay. None of his team could say that they came out of the war unscratched. The wounds they suffered both physically and mentally wouldn't leave them anytime soon.

Fay was probably the most unscratched of the team. Of his five teammates she was the only one who had been part of his original team. The other four came at a later time as they replaced the people who had died. That didn't mean she came out completely unscratched, like him she had several scars that would probably never heal and it probably would also take a long time before she could sleep without dreamless sleep potion, but at least she still had her mother to support her.

Susan on the other hand didn't come off as unscratched as her female year mate. During one of the skirmishes with the Death Eaters she had lost her arm due to a dark cutting curse and nearly bled to death before she was stabilised, but that was only physically. Harry had gotten to know her a bit better during his fifth year and he discovered that she was a very kind if not a bit shy person. That changed when the news of her aunt, Minister Bones reached her. Susan had admitted to him at one point that due her parents dying during the first war she was raised by her aunt and she saw her as good as mother. After she heard of her death she became cold to almost everyone and often quite brutal when fighting Death Eaters.

The last time he had heard of Seamus was that he had to stay in a Muggle hospital due to severe alcohol poisoning. Harry had known his teammate drank quite a bit, but it was never that bad. Maybe it was because now the war was over Seamus now had the time to think about things he would rather forget.

Clara … well she was a sadistic bloodsucking vampire who kills her enemies with a bright smile on her face … she hadn't been sane in Harry's opinion to begin with so this war did relatively little to her mental health. Then again there was always the question how much of that was a front.

And then there was Astoria, thinking about her mental state made Harry flash back to the aftermath of his team engaging a Death Eater Patrol. It was shortly after Astoria had joined the team.

XXX

_Harry looked around as he took in the situation. His team had just quickly and efficiently taken down a Death Eater patrol, suffering only minor injuries._

_Susan was tending to a minor wound Seamus had suffered, Fay was preparing the Death Eaters they had managed to incapacitate for transport and Clara was 'drinking'. _

_The only one left was that new girl, Astoria Greengrass, she was standing a bit away from the others and she was kicking away onto one of the prisoners._

_Harry sighted, this was hardly the first time he had seen this. The militia had a lot of people who had lost people to Death Eaters and if they had the chance they would unleash their anger on them. __U__n__fortunately they needed as much Death Eaters alive as possible for interrogation so Harry decided to interfere before the girl went too far. _

_When Harry got closer he saw her pull her wand and shout. ''Mercy? Mercy! Did you scum give my sister mercy?'' _

_The Death Eater replied something, but unlike Astoria he wasn't loud enough for Harry to hear, but whatever it was, he said, apparently set Astoria of as she pointed her wand at the Death Eater and exclaimed. ''Crucio!''_

_It was a testament to how much Harry had changed that he didn't even bat an eye as he saw som__e__one get tortured by the unforgiveable curse._

_Not so long ago Harry would have screamed bloody murder if someone on his side had used a unfo__r__giveable or defied the orders to bring as many Death Eaters back unharmed, but times had changed. _

_Now he couldn't really care about the orders from the higher ups. Here out in the field it was your team that watched your back so Harry definitely had no intention to begin an argument with his newest teammate just to safe a guy who would be given to the vampire Coven sooner than later._

_As for the Unforgivable? Well if it is them or us then it is definitely them and what better way to hit them then with curses that can go through any shield (even if they are very draining on ones reserves)_

_After watching her dispassionately for a couple of minutes Harry had to say he was impressed with the young witch. Most people wouldn't be able to use a unforgiveable for such a length of time wit__h__out at least showing some strain. _

_Deciding that she had had enough time to vent Harry walked up to her and firmly said. ''Enough,''_

_Astoria stopped the curse and looked at Harry mixed emotions in her eyes. She stared at him for a moment before she nodded and started walking towards the others._

_Harry sighted as he looked at the still convulsing man. Harry knew that the man would be useless in the eyes of the intelligence department after being exposed to the torture curse for so long._

''_Clara,'' He called and the aforementioned vampire looked up from her 'meal'. ''You can have this one too.'' He said while pointing at the man at his feet._

_Clara flashed him a smile that would have looked quite pretty on her still young looking face …. unfo__r__tunately the effect was ruined by the blood dripping down her chin. _

_XXX_

Then there was himself … physically he came out of the war pretty well, he lost his sight in one of his eyes after the massacre and had that eye replaced with a magical one. Other than that he managed to come out of the war with only a couple of scars, thanks mostly due to Mrs Dunbar. Mentally? Well he definitely didn't turn into some insane killer, but he did change a lot from the naïve little school boy.

''Anyway, slowly but surely we managed to overwhelm the Death Eaters and after months and months of fighting we managed to force Voldemort to retreat back to his last stronghold, Hogwarts. It was there during the third and final battle of Hogwarts that I managed to fulfil that accused prophecy.''

''May I ask how you did this and are you sure he is dead for good?'' Dumbledore asked.

''Voldemort survived back then at Halloween due to his followers. Normally after death a witch or wizard can choose to become a ghost. Voldemort became something else, a ghost doesn't have any magic to speak off, but Voldemort designed the dark mark so that it was connected to his very soul. The mark was designed in such a way that it could siphon magic from who it was branded on to soul of their master. Due to this Voldemort became a ghost who could utilise magic, although in a very crude form, a wraith.''

Dumbledore nodded. ''I suspected something along those lines, but that doesn't explain how you managed to defeat him for good,'' He said.

''I was getting to that,'' Harry said, continuing his explanation. ''After I killed his body he turned into a wraith again. Due to my .. uh .. special status I managed to banish a being of death to the afterlife.''

''Your special status?'' Dumbledore asked confused what the boy was talking about.

Harry nodded, ''You hold one of the three pieces so you probably know the story.'' He said while pointedly looking at Dumbledore's wand. ''The title is more than just a fancy title, those who unite all three gain control over those who have died and are still in this realm.''

Several people were looking at Harry strangely, they had no idea what he and the headmaster were talking about.

''You have untied all three?'' Dumbledore asked, not believing someone so young managed to accomplish his childhood dream.

Harry shrugged. ''Ah,'' He replied nonchalantly, ''I don't see why you are so surprised about that, you should know were two of the three are. It is not that far out of the realm of possibilities that I could have recovered the third.''

Dumbledore nodded slowly, he would talk about this in a more private setting on a later date. ''I see … so you managed to defeat Voldemort, how is magical Britain now?''

''Ever head of FUBAR?'' Harry asked with just the tiniest amount of mirth shining through his eyes. He noticed that only a couple of people in the room recognised what he said and Dumbledore wasn't one of them. ''What about TARFU then?'' When the old man made another look of non-recognition, Harry deadpanned. ''They were bad, okay; The goblins were still out there, Diagon allay was mostly destroyed, the ministry was plundered empty, Hogwarts was far from ready to receive students again and almost the entire elder council died shortly after the war due to varies 'accidents'.''

Harry knew damn well that those hadn't been accidents. Some of those deaths were most likely due to infighting, but a lot of them were most likely killed by members of the militia. While during the war it was a sort of unspoken agreement that they needed to be a united front against their enemies, after the war ended on the other hand all bets were off and with most of the Aurors killed there was little to stop those who wanted vengeance.

''That is bad, indeed.'' Dumbledore admitted.

* * *

**Author notes:**

Well this was my getting the facts straight chapter. I know it seemed a bit rushed, but I wanted to establish a timeline like this. Flashbacks for the more important pieces in Harry's history will come later.

This chapter was boring to write. Way and way to much canon for my liking (even if it was only the first four Hogwarts years).

I hope this chapter showed some insight in Harry's character. Hopefully this also clarified with what I meant with Indifferent!Harry in the summery. This Harry has experienced that neither side of the war is good and that the people are hardly worth fighting for. So he is pretty much indifferent towards 'the greater good' it also referred to Harry owning the resurrection stone and therefore not really caring to see the real deal.

Just to be clear; Harry had other teammates throughout the war. His original team consisted out of Himself, Fay and four others (who are dead). Every time someone died they got replaced. So don't be surprised if Harry has other team members in some of the flashbacks (excepts of course Fay)

FUBAR: fucked up beyond all recognition

TARFU: totally and royally fucked up

And lastly thanks to all the people who reviewed, one of them a anon reviewer named bubulala managed to guess the story which this one is based on correctly (Yet Another Universe by Silverfawkes)

**Next Chapter: Meeting the Potters**


	3. Meeting the Potters

**Chapter three: Meeting the Potters**

Silence reigned after Harry finished his story, everyone seemed to use the lull in the conversation to go over what they had heard.

Harry too decided to this moment to decide on his next course of action. He had to decide now what to do. He could of course just be an annoying little brat, cross his arms and demand to be send back … yeah as if that would work out. So he had to cooperate at some level, but what should he try to do; stay here and fight or would he try to get home?

On one hand they for all intend and purposes kidnapped him and want him to fight Voldemort again. On the other hand if he looked at it objectively this could prove to be a blessing in disguise. Sure there were some friends alive back home, but most of them were dead and then there was that blasted bounty to consider. How was he supposed to know that Goblin was the son of the king?

So yeah, there definitely were some incentives to stay here, but as always when there are pros there are cons. The biggest con was of course Voldemort, a much better prepared for war Voldemort at that, then there was the fact that he had nothing here; no recourses, no record of education, no connection, no allies and then there were the deadly hallows; was he still the master of death? Or was he only the master of death in his own universe and must the hallows of this universe be united to win?

There was also the uncomfortable matter of his counterpart being dead. Harry, fully understanding that the people in this room were not the people he knew still felt certain emotions watching certain people. If this was true for him would that also mean other felt the same regarding him? Harry had no intention of replacing a death person and one thing was certain if he was going to stay here than it would be as himself, screw what any sheep might think.

One thing was certain they needed him a lot more than he needed them. So Harry would first see what they had to offer before deciding.

''So you summoned me here to fight?'' He finally said in a neutral tone. ''Why should I?''

''Don't you want to help out all those innocents?'' Dumbledore asked in such a way that would have invoked in most people, feelings of guilt.

''I already did my part, I fought and bled for those so called innocents.'' Harry replied with just some heat in his voice. ''And now you have kidnapped me from my home to fight for people I don't know.''

Dumbledore had the decency to look ashamed. ''What about your parents and sister don't you want to meet them?''

''My parents are dead and I don't have a sister. As I told Mrs Dunbar the Fay I know is not her daughter, just like am not the son of the Potters here.'' Harry said before tossing Dumbledore a bone. ''Say I fight your war and I win then what? I have nothing here, no money, no O.W.L.s, no N.E.W.T's, are you going to send me home or what?''

Dumbledore stroke his beard in thought, he hadn't really considered this yet. ''Well you can got to Hogwarts for your seventh year and your N.E.W.T's.'' The fact that boy-who-lived would show up in Hogwarts again would definitely do well for his image, so he had no problem with that. ''I am sure James and Lily wouldn't mind providing for you nor giving you a home for how long you might need. As for getting you home … I am sure we can look into that after the war is over.''

Harry narrowed his eyes at the man as he listened. He wasn't dumb, far from it actually and he knew better than to just accept his words at face value. Him going to Hogwarts was most likely just as much for Dumbledore's benefit as for Harry. At Hogwarts Dumbledore could keep track of him. Possibly there were also other reasons.

Forcing him to interact with his counterpart's family was also a blatant move to anchor him to Dumbledore's side. The vague wording regarding his trip home didn't really help either.

Harry thought for a moment, he wasn't stupid enough to just accept it, but the offer of a real education was tempting and if he played his cards right then the end of the war here might be a lot better than at home. If things didn't work out as planned he could always try to get home by himself.

So after several moments he spoke up again. ''Okay, I will fight for you, but I have several conditions.'' He said slowly while forming small short terms and vague long term plans in his head.

''Oh?'' Dumbledore asked with a raised eyebrow. ''And those are?''

''I want a house elf to be summoned right here and right now and given clothes so it might work for me. I don't care who the elf is, as long as its name isn't Kreacher.''

Without having all the information, he couldn't really plan yet, but a bonded elf was always useful. Sure he could have asked for an elf and someone could have ordered his or her elf to assist Harry, but it was much better to have an elf bonded to him, as said elf would most likely be blindly loyal to him and never betray any secrets, unlike a elf who only obeys him because he was ordered to.

''I also want a unbreakable vow of you, Dumbledore stating the following things; You will give up freely any information you have on Voldemort, his known followers or those you suspect, this include any and all plans your spy told you about, You will make sure I exist in both the magical and the Muggle worlds and give me the paperwork to prove it, I will be able to attend Hogwarts free of charge or if that is not possible you will have someone else pay for it, I will be able to leave Hogwarts as I please, you will do everything you can do to legally protect me or anyone I recruit to the cause as long as I don't break any laws that weren't in effect before Voldemort began interfering and finally I want you to vow to give up any information you have up on the ritual when I ask and after the war is over you will do everything you can to find a way to send me back and give me the information as soon as you have it.''

After pausing for a moment so that everyone could absorb his words Harry continued. ''If you vow this then I vow I will do what is necessary to end the war and I nor anyone I will recruit will harm any innocent.''

This was a tricky part of the vow and Harry hoped they would accept his wording. Him leaving out killing Voldemort would leave him a lot more wiggle room in how to fight the war. Heck the way he worded it he could stun Dumbledore and give him to Voldemort as a peace offering, if that stopped the war than technically he ended the war.

It was also important that he was the one to mention the innocents. If for example Dumbledore had vowed he would protect Harry legally as long as he didn't hurt the innocents than he would more than likely be screwed. After all it mattered what the one who vowed deemed as an innocent and Harry's definition of an innocent sure as hell wasn't the same as Dumbledore.

''Lastly I want a unbreakable vow of at least five of the people here, all from different families that states you will do everything to make sure Dumbledore upholds his vow.''

This was to ensure Dumbledore didn't just commit suicide to get out of the oath. Now five people would do everything to ensure Dumbledore would fulfil his oaths. If Dumbledore died before he could they would possibly even try to use Necromancy to resurrect him, which will most likely fail, which will get them killed. Harsh? Yes, but all the people here are adults and at least he didn't kill of entire families. Besides this would ensure Dumbledore didn't take the easy way out as the man never liked seeing unnecessary death.

Dumbledore listened closely as Harry listed of his lists of demands. His request for a free elf proved that the boy at least had some intelligence and didn't trust blindly, a trait he no doubt developed due his time fighting in a war. This was a double edged sword. On one hand it would be much harder to manipulate someone intelligent, on the other hand dumb people really don't survive long and he really couldn't afford to lose another chosen one.

The unbreakable vow was also pretty clever, especially as he trapped others with him. While he had no trouble sacrificing himself from the greater good condemning others to the same fate was a bit harder pill to swallow.

'What to do? What to do?' He mused. To be honest the boy didn't ask for too much especially if consider that they asked him to go up against Tom. The only thing that really bothered him was the unbreakable vow the others had to make. He could argue against it of course, but the fact remained that this was his first conversation with the boy and he really couldn't risk alienating him and a first impression is always the most important.

Finally after several moments of silence Dumbledore decided on his course of action. ''Fine, I will agree on your demands, Mr Potter. Now I ask for volunteers who will take an oath and someone who is willing to give up a house elf. Now before anyone volunteers, please take a couple of moments to think about it.'' He said before turning to the youngest of the room. ''Mr Potter, could you please write your oath down so we don't accidently use the wrong wording.

Harry nodded curtly and picked his wand back up, something which made Moodey tense. Using his wand he transfigured the untouched tea cup in front of him in a pen and conjured a piece of paper. He scrabbled down the vows for Dumbledore, himself and the five yet undetermined people and read it over several times to ensure he got it right. When he was satisfied he banished the piece of paper toward Dumbledore who began reading it.

After Harry had banished the paper he took a moment to look around what the other people in the room were doing. He saw that quite a few people were discussing things among themselves. He managed to catch bits and pieces of their conversations such as ''If Albus agrees,'' ''He is a Gryffindor I doubt he has any harmful intent,'' and ''As long as it is only one of us than he will still have parent left.''

After several minutes Dumbledore cleared his throat and the room felt silent again. ''Now as for Mr Potter first request, who is willing to give up on a house elf?''

The room was silent for a moment before the man who had questioned Harry's flying skill stood up and said. ''He can have one of mine,'' He then barked. ''Toby!''

Moments after he said it, an elf appeared with a pop. ''Master called for Toby?'' The elf squeaked.

''Yes, elf,'' He said as he used a wand to conjure a sock, making the elf already large eye widen dramatically. ''I am giving your clothes, your last order is to be that boy's new elf.'' Having said that he tossed the sock offhandedly to a teary eyed elf.

The elf caught the sock dejectedly and turned to Harry. ''Are you Toby's new master?''

Harry nodded as he took in the elf critically. He looked like an average elf, no real signs of abuse, but going by the interaction with his former master no real close bond either. The only real thing of note was his 'clothing'; It was a towel with a coat of arms on it that Harry didn't recognise, but assumed belonged to the family the elf had been serving.

''Yes, my name is Harry James Potter, will you serve me Toby?'' Harry asked the standard questioned to begin a house elf bond.

The elf's eyes widened, ''You are Harry Potter sir? But Toby heard Harry Potter died!''

''Yeah well, one did and another didn't.'' Harry replied, not really feeling like explaining the concept of alternative universe to the elf, especially considering he didn't understand it completely himself.

''Then Toby would be honoured to serve Harry Potter sir,'' The elf said acknowledging Harry's earlier question and completing the bond. ''Does master wants Toby to wear the Potter crest?''

Harry shook his head in the negative, ''No, you are not a Potter elf. Instead you are my personal elf as such you will not bear a family crest. '' The elf gained a dejected look at hearing that and Harry sighted at overly emotionally elf. Picking up his wand again, he aimed it at the elf and transfigured the towel; now instead of the family crest he bore the same image as Harry's tattoo. ''Instead you will bear my sign,'' He said as he briefly pulled up his sleeve again to show the elf his tattoo.

It was a total lie, a lot of the militia had that exact same tattoo, but the elf seemed overjoyed so Harry couldn't complain.

Not having anything to do for the elf yet, Harry indicated for him to stand by his side and gestured for Dumbledore to move on.

''Ah yes, now that is settled, any volunteers for the oath?''

XxX

After half an hour the oaths were sworn, word for word as Harry had written them down and everyone's attention was back at Dumbledore again.

''This concludes today's meeting of the Order of the Phoenix, we will assemble again in a couple of days to discuss the new developments.'' Having said that he walked up to Sirius and muttered. ''Can you get James and Lily home and tell them to get their Pensieve ready. Tell them I will be there shortly.'' The man nodded and left the room along with his wife who had been watching their interaction.

When only Harry, Dumbledore and Toby were left in the room, Dumbledore spoke up again. ''Do you mind if I take a look at that ring, Mr Potter?'' He questioned, his attention fully on the resurrection stone.

''You want to use the resurrection stone?'' Harry questioned, noticing the look.

Dumbledore gained a conflicted look on his face seemingly unsure how to proceed until he shook his head briefly and said, ''No, I don't think that is a good idea. May I ask how you manage to obtain it?''

'' Voldemort had it, but he gave it to his most trusted subordinate, Bellatrix Lestrange as a reward. She either wasn't told or didn't know what the ring truly was as she called it the signet ring of house Gaunt, last true descendants of Salazar Slytherin.''

''I see,'' Dumbledore slowly, before continuing in a normal yet serious tone. ''Guard those artefacts well, Mr Potter, they might mean victory or defeat in this war and I am sure I don't have to tell you how many will be after them if they learn about them. I will also have people look out for the stone so we will have two sets.''

Harry nodded, not sure of that plan would work and if it worked then who would become the second master of death. The stone would accept anyone as its master, but the wand will only acknowledge those who beat their last master and then there is the cloak, anyone could use it, but what were the requirements for mastery? To be a decedent of Ignotus Peverell? If Luna's story about the Hallows were true then the Cloak had always been passed down through his family line.

Harry was brought out of his thoughts when Dumbledore spoke up again. ''As I said before I am sure your parents will have no trouble housing you for the foreseeable future. In fact I am going over there now to tell them about the meeting.''

Not waiting for any sign of content he placed a hand on Harry shoulder and the other in the air as he called. ''Fawkes!'' and before Harry could blink he saw a bright light and suddenly he was standing in someone living room facing three surprised looking people.

''Ah Lily, James and young Ms Potter, how good to see you again,'' Dumbledore said, but they didn't react as their complete attention was on Harry.

'This is seriously messed up,' Harry thought before addressing the tree Potters in front of him. ''Mr Potter,'' He said with a nod. ''Mrs Potter,'' He nodded again, ''My apology for stunning you, I thought you were a threat and reacted,'' He then addressed the last Potter in the room. A teenaged girl who he presumed was the Rose, Dumbledore had mentioned. She looked quite a bit like her mother, but the most noteworthy aspect of her face were her eyes, they looked dejected? She also seemed to look far less surprised than her parents did. Still regardless of her somewhat strange expression he politely nodded toward her and said. ''Ms Potter.''

When he heard the parents of parents were alive he had some time to think about how to interact with them and he decided to just be polite with them. They weren't his parents, his had died for him and he had no intention of sullying their memory by replacing them. Still those people were providing him with a roof above his head so the very least he could do was be polite.

The three seemed to be somewhat taken aback by his greeting and before they could speak up again, Dumbledore interfered. ''Lily, James I know this all may be a bit confusing, but this is a different Harry then the one you know. I have a memory to show you that might clear thing up a bit, but for now I want to request that young Mr Potter might be allowed to stay here.''

No sooner had he said that those words that James agreed, blustering about the return of his heir. It was weird for Harry how different this version of James Potter was to the shade he had interacted with using his ring. He also notice the look of dejection increased on Rose face.

''Now,'' Dumbledore said, ''Like I said I have memory to show you, perhaps you can call an elf to show were Mr Potter will be staying? So that he can settle in?''

''Rose can do that.'' Lily said, not even glancing at her daughter, in fact she hadn't diverted her attention from Harry since arrival.

''What room?'' Rose asked.

''Harry's room of course.'' James replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world and Harry flinched. 'Did he just tell her I am going to sleep in the room of his deceased son?' he thought.

Rose nodded and told him to follow her. Harry complied and followed her out of the room without a second glance at the reaming people in the room.

After walking the next ten minutes in silence Harry spoke up again. ''You only live here with the three of you right?'' He questioned in reference to the seemingly ridicules large house.

''Yes,'' She replied shortly.

''You don't seemed too surprised to see someone who looks like your dead brother.'' Harry half stated, half asked.

That stopped her dead for a moment before she continued walking again. ''I overheard your conversation with the order.'' She admitted.

''Ah,'' He replied, unsure how to react to that.

After walking for another ten minutes in silence they finally arrived what was apparently Harry's room.

Rose opened the door and gestured him in, Harry stepped in and his first thought was that his counterpart was colour-blind because no sane person had a room like that.

The first thing that probably anyone would notice when they entered the room was the walls were coloured red while the ceiling was painted gold with an identical coloured carpet on the floor.

Stepping further into the room he noticed the walls were laden with photos. Harry slowly made his way along the wall as he inspected the photos; trying to gain some insight in his counterpart.

The first photo was clearly of his counterpart and some Quidditch player, Harry never really followed professional Quidditch, but he was at least knowledgeable enough to recognise the Puddlemere United uniform the guy who was shaking his counterpart hand wore.

Harry had to admit that after studying the photo for several moments that while he and his counterpart looked a lot alike, there was still some mayor differences. Some were subtle; like the way he stood, while others were minor like the differences in glasses. The boy also still seemed to be still innocent, the innocence of a child which Harry had mostly lost due to his upbringing.

Slowly moving along the well, Harry took his time to take the pictures in; there were a couple more with Quidditch players and varies other adults which Harry was pretty sure were famous.

Then there were also quite a number of family Portraits; strangely enough most of them were of only the three oldest Potters. Rose appeared only occasionally, but even when she was in the photo she still seemed to be distanced from the other three.

There were also quite a few of Harry and Sirius Black, which Harry assumed was also this Harry's godfather. Strangely he hadn't encountered the last loyal Marauder on any of the pictures yet. In fact the man hadn't been at Grimmauld Place either.

Turning his head slightly he saw that Rose was standing in the middle of the room, seemingly waiting for him.

''Do you know what happened to Remus Lupin by any chance?'' He asked.

She seemed surprised at his question and looked at him with a hint of suspicion. ''Why do you want to know?''

Harry shrugged, ''In my universe, my father was best friends with three people before his death, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. Pettigrew betrayed him, same as here apparently so I can understand why there are no photos of the man, but I can't understand why there aren't any of Lupin.''

''You know what he is right?''

''A werewolf you mean?'' Harry replied before mentally adding 'a coward who left the son of his supposed best friend to grow up at the Dursleys.'

''And you don't care about that?'' She asked in disbelief.

''No,'' he deadpanned. ''I have nothing against werewolves as long as they don't try to bite me at least, do you?'' By now he had already turned around and continued studying the photos as such he didn't see her disbelief turn into shock.

''No, no I don't'' She replied.

''But my counterpart did?'' Harry inquired, seeing that the only reason she would be so shocked.

''He wasn't too fond of dark creatures in general.'' She replied, before adding, ''That's why it was shocking to hear that you worked alongside a vampire.''

''Hn,'' He mused out loud. It was interesting just how much he had learned either directly and indirectly about his counterpart since he entered the room.

The house coloured room, the photos of famous people, the apparent rather black and white view on dark creatures, it didn't paint the greatest picture in Harry's mind regarding his counterpart. He sincerely hoped he hadn't made too many enemies in Hogwarts, otherwise things would get very difficult for him even if they weren't the same person.

''I don't exactly dislike most dark creatures, most I am pretty neutral too as long as they don't try to harm me or those close to me. There are exceptions of course, I absolutely dislike Dementors and Bogarts, but I highly doubt there is anyone out there that like those foul things.''

While he was saying this, Harry had moved to a piece of the wall that seemed to be dominated by an all too familiar redheaded family. One photo especially caught his attention; it was a photo of his counterpart and the youngest Weasely. His counterpart was looking at the camera smugly, while the girl sat on his lap while looking near adoringly at the Harry in the picture, it was kind of sickening for Harry to watch, especially after what Molly and Ginny had done in his universe.

''Please tell me your brother did not date Ginny Weasely?'' He asked to the other occupant of the room, his revulsion with the idea could be clearly heard by anyone listening.

''You didn't?'' Again the surprise was clear to hear. ''Harry always went on how he loved her and that he was like dad and found love young. ''

Harry blinked in surprise and turned around to face her, ''How young?''

''He claimed it was love at first sight.'' She replied, ''They met on his fifth birthday.''

Harry scoffed at hearing this and turned back to the photos, by now he had reached a section of the wall that seemed to be dedicated to the Gryffindor house, as it had pictures of Harry with varies people he recognised as his former housemates.

After several moments of silence Rose spoke up again, ''Why are you so different?''

Harry turned around looking at her questioning, causing her to elaborate. ''I, mean you look alike, but you act so different, if you are the same person shouldn't you be acting more the same.''

Harry shrugged. ''Most likely due to our upbringing,'' He replied. ''It's not like our personalities are set at birth – the fact that I was 'raised' by someone completely different alone would cause a difference in personality.''

There was of course also the matter that Harry was already seventeen while her brother had apparently died at the end of the third task, but he wasn't insensitive enough to point that out.

Just then a small house elf popped into the room. ''Young master, young mistress, master told Barny to tell that dinner is ready.''

Rose nodded toward the elf and said. ''We will be there soon, Barny.''

XxX

After another fifteen minute walk the two Potters arrived in what Harry presumed to be the dinner room; already sitting there were the two elder Potters, Dumbledore had apparently left. The two Potters were quietly conversing to each other, but stopped when Rose and Harry came into the room.

''Ah Harry, there you are,'' James said with a happy smile on his face. ''Please take a seat I believe we have much to discuss.''

Harry nodded and took a seat opposite of the two Potters while Rose slid in a seat next to him. ''Albus explained the situation to us and showed us the meeting you had with the order.'' Lily began. ''We understand the situation is unique, but know that you are our son is some form and that you will always be welcome at Potter manor.''

Harry tilted his head a little to the side as he studied the two Potters. As far as he could observe neither showed any of the standard signs of lying, but for some reason he also like they weren't telling the entire truth either. Still if he had to stay here for the foreseeable future then the least he could was respond politely.

''Thank you, Mr Potter, Mrs Potter, I appreciate that sentiment.'' He replied. As his focus was still on the two he noticed the brief look of displeasure when he addressed them so informal and he filed that away to analyse later. ''I understand how this might be difficult for you, as such I appreciate it that you are willing to take me in.''

James waved him off, ''Don't worry about it,'' He said in a casual tone. ''As the eldest Potter child you have every right to be here.''

Harry wasn't exactly sure on how to reply to that statement so he merely lowered his head in a silent show of appreciation.

It was at this point that the elf who Harry recognised as Barny popped in and with him came a vast assortment of food that covered the dining table.

''Well dig in,'' James said as he himself started loading food on his plate.

Harry looked suspiciously at the food for a moment before taking something from the plates that the other three had already taken something from and loaded it on his own. He then as waved his right hand over his plate in a as casual manner as he could.

He knew it was very bad manners to check food for poison, but in Harry's opinion it was better to be paranoid and rude than dead. After all it wouldn't be the first time someone had tried to kill him with poison.

When the ring enchanted to check for poison didn't light up, Harry took his cutlery and started to eat. If anyone noticed his strange behaviour then they didn't comment on it.

''So Harry,'' Lilly spoke up after several moment of silent eating. ''I am quite interesting to hear about my son's life from another universe.''

Harry frowned for a moment, contemplating of he should call her out on her calling him her son. After a moment thought he decided against it. If she had seen the memory that she knew his opinion, arguing against it right now might do more harm than good.

After swallowing the food in his month, ''What do you want to know, if you saw the memories of my meeting with the Cul- I mean the Oder then you should have a general idea of my life.''

''Well that was a general review, I would like to hear more.''

Harry shrugged, ''Ask away.''

''What about Quidditch?'' James questioned. ''You said your joined the team in your first year. You must be pretty good.''

Again Harry shrugged, ''I've only played three years and in those three years I lost once while playing and once because I was unconscious in the Hospital wing.''

''What about a girlfriend?'' James asked again. ''Have you left someone special behind when you came here?''

Harry stared at the man for a good several seconds with a neutral look before he replied. ''We were at war, I was one of Voldemort's most sought after targets, what do you think?'' He asked rhetorically.

Seeing that was one of the questions they shouldn't have asked (Dumbledore had already warned them it would be a good idea to have them ask anything pre-Hogwarts) Lily decided to ask another question. ''What about school? What were you favourite subjects?''

'favourite subjects?' Harry thought as he mentally went over the subject he had, ''Mm DADA depends on the year, Potions …. Snape enough said, Astronomy …. waste of time (and sleep), Charms … definitely one of his favourites, Herbology … meh, History of Magic …. good for catching some sleep, and then there was Transfiguration which he also enjoyed.'

''Of my core subjects I usually enjoyed Charms and Transfiguration.'' He said. ''As for my electives … I chose to take Divination and Care, In one my death would be predicted every other lesson and in the other there was usually some creature trying to kill you … so yeah neither of those ranked too high on my list of favourite subjects.''

Deciding he had answered enough questions for the moment, he asked a question to the person next to him. ''What about you? Do you attend Hogwarts to?''

The girl seemed to be surprised at being addressed, but answered regardless with a nod and replied. ''Yes I am, This year will be my fifth.''

''Ah O.W.L. year, I heard they sucked. What house are you in?''

''Hufflepuff,'' She replied and Harry noticed her stiffen, while from the corner of his eyes he saw James scoff slightly.

''The house of the loyal and the hard working, a good house to be in.'' Harry stated casually, not missing the change in expression of the two people he had been observing before. Apparently neither had expected him to say something positive about that house.

''Aren't you a Gryffindor?'' James asked.

Harry blinked and tilted his head slightly to the side, ''If you saw the memory of my meeting with the Order then you should know that yes I was a lion, your point being?''

''Well most people usually don't talk positive about the other houses.'' Lily supplied.

Harry snorted, ''Do you honestly believe I still have something as stupid as house pride after I fought side by side with Hogwarts students from all four houses? Gryffindor is no better than any of the other houses.''

''It is!'' James argued.

''Why?''

''Because it is the house of the light wizards, the house of Albus Dumbledore!''

''What about Peter Pettigrew, didn't he betray you here too?''

James huffed, ''It was obvious he was just a spy for the Snakes.''

Harry stared incredulously at the man, from his conversations with the shades of his dead parents, he knew that his father especially was rather pro- Gryffindor and had a rather black and white view on the whole good vs. evil thing, but this version of James Potter seemed to be even worse. Was it just something that had developed over time? Or perhaps it was because he was the father of the boy-who-lived?

Harry then remembered that Rose never had answered his question regarding where Remus was and he came to an answer he really didn't like.

''Where is Remus Lupin?''

James sneered, ''The werewolf? Why would any self-respecting light wizard interact with them?''

Harry gave the man a blank look, he might no longer have the highest opinion of the man, but being betrayed by your friends like that is too much.

Harry abruptly stood up, ''Pardon me, I have lost my appetite, now that you know the truth am I still welcome to sleep in that room?'' He asked while looking at Lily.

For a moment she looked like she wanted to say something else, but then she just nodded and said, ''Yes, yes you can.''

Harry gave the occupants of the room a curt nod and stalked out of the room

* * *

**Author notes:**

The Potters were very difficult to write. On one hand you have the whole the son from a different universe arrives in your universe and on the other hand there is also the issue how I wanted to portray them in this story. If you haven't picked up on the less than subtle hints in this chapter, the Potter parents will not start out being the most likeable characters in the story, but I didn't want them to be one-dimensional bad parents. So yeah that wasn't easy. That's all … see you next chapter.

**EDIT (spoilers): **And for those wondering; no the Potters are not Bad! bad. They just let the fame of being the parents of the boy-who-lived go to their head. And because it was Harry who gave them that fame they focused a more on him (this became worse when famous!Harry demanded more attention. So no; there was no overly neglected Rose (and she wasn't raised by the house elves). The other result of their fame was that they started to emulate the image that was put on them more and more (their obsession with the light and by extension Gryffindor).

**Next chapter: chapter four: Rise of Lord Riddle **


	4. Rise of Lord Riddle

**Chapter four: Rise of Lord Riddle**

The next morning found Harry sitting cross-legged on his bed. The room had changed a bit since he had first seen it. After coming back from diner he had ordered Toby to remove all the pictures and put them in boxes. He had also used his magic to change the colour scheme of the room into something a bit more neutral.

Right now Harry was in his Oclumecy mindscape. It was rather underdeveloped as far as mindscapes go, but seeing he hadn't practiced the art for too long it wasn't really surprising.

His mindscape was a single room and in the middle of it was a single armchair, in which he was currently sitting in, surrounding him, stacked against the wall were bookcases filled with books.

On the ground however was why he was here. Lying there were several books who looked like they had fallen out of the bookcases and large stacks of parchments were randomly stacked throughout the room.

''My mind is a serious mess,'' Harry muttered as he took in the room.

The reason for this mess was because what those books and parchments represented. They represented information, everything Harry had learned (and could remember) could be found back in one of those books.

Of course they were nothing more than metaphoric representation, it was not like he could actually open a book and read what he did when he was five or something.

A good Oclumecy practiser always has a well organised mind. The room he was in was a representation of his mind and normally all books are filed away orderly into the bookcases, but not now.

The stacks of parchment represented new information. When he first started his training he had to spend at least an hour a day in mediation sorting those new bits of information in their correct case and shelve, but as he got better in the art he had to do it less and less until he reached the point his mind had developed enough that it could do it on its own while he was sleeping.

Unfortunately he had received so much new information in the last couple of hours that his mind couldn't keep up and even after a full night of sleep his mind was still a mess when he entered it shortly after waking up.

The books on the other hand were worse. They represented information he had already sorted once. He wasn't sure why they were out of the shelves, but he could only assume that they represented knowledge he had filled away as one thing and due to the meetings yesterday his perspective of that knowledge had changed so much that it didn't fit in those places any more.

Harry couldn't say he had been surprised to find his mind in disarray like this. Too much had happened yesterday. If he hadn't had developed the mind-set that everything is possible (and pretty decent control over his emotions due to his training) then he would probably have cracked.

Right now he was thinking about the war in this universe. He had vowed to do what was necessary to end the war, but what could he do?

He had been a team leader, not a freaking general. He could come up with pretty decent tactics on the spot, but long term strategies?

Harry sighted as he rubbed his eyes, oh how he longed to the days where Hermione came up with the plans and he could just charge in head first like the brave little Gryffindor he was. Unfortunately those days had long since passed. He had learned the need to plan from professor Bell, but that had only been theoretically. He thought he had understood, but in reality he hadn't truly learned that lesson until he lost Su when he had ordered his team to attack his enemy without any decent kind of strategy. If her death had taught him one thing then that had been he had to become a lot more calculative if he wanted his team to survive.

Closing his eyes for the moment, Harry took a deep breath and slowly exhaled again, trying to get his mind in a more relaxed state. He would need it if he wanted to make any half decent plans that wouldn't blow up in his face in the near future.

'Okay so what do I want to accomplish and what do I have at my disposal to that?' He asked himself as he forced himself to think about it logically.

'To end the war while making sure I would come out of it as good as possible.'

To end the war he had to neutralise either side of the conflict, but looking at it realistically the only side that won that would be good for him would be Dumbledore's. There was no way Voldemort was going to let him live if he won the war.

But how was he going to win against Voldemort again? Apparently this one had a much longer time to amass forces and the number of allies he had were rather limited. Say what you want about the Elder council, but at least they managed to rally a decent fighting force against a common foe, now it seemed the only allies he would have were members of the order of the phoenix or as they became more commonly known after Dumbeldore's death, the Cult of Dumbledore or CoD for short. And if the rumours about their fighting style is to believed then they will do more harm than good.

His best bet of getting some semi-competent fighters was to expose Voldemort in some way, but if he did that then things might escalate in another Goblin rebellion. That is something he absolutely wanted to prevent as the lack of rebellion here was one of the main reasons why he was considering staying here.

But how could he prevent it? It was not like he could mass-Imperius everyone to keep their gold in the banks nor could he force the Goblins not to rebel. So… what to do?

Goblins aside there was of course also the issue of his age. Few would willingly follow people that were younger than them. That would make recruiting others definitely hard.

A sigh escaped Harry again as he decided to let that matter rest for the moment and instead moved to Voldemort and the death eaters himself. What did they have that made them so successful?

First and foremost they had money. Many of the families that supported the pureblood supremacy were quite well off and there was no denying that money is necessary for a lot of things. 'This might be something to look into at a later date,' he thought before thinking of the next reason why the death eaters were so effective.

They had allies and lot of them, basically all the semi-intelligent (dark) magical creatures sans the vampires in the UK had joined the armies of Voldemort. This was mostly due to the fact that those creatures were pretty much shunned by the ministry and the general public. So it really was no wonder that they had joined the opposition … much worse it probably couldn't get for them. Harry wasn't even sure why the Vampires had chosen to join their side, perhaps it was their pride or perhaps they just didn't want to fight side by side with werewolves (he still wasn't sure why the immortals hated the shape shifter so much), but regardless what reason they had, he wasn't going to complain, any ally was highly appreciated at that time.

The main question right now was how many species allied themselves with Voldemort in this universe? Going by how James treated Remus Harry doubted things were better here for magical creatures, in fact there was a decent chance things were worse. So Harry had to take in account that there was a very real possibility all the 'dark' magical races had allied themselves with Voldemort. Perhaps he could convince some of them to join his side before the fighting began? Or if that wasn't possible pit them against each other in some way? He would have to ask Dumbledore what he knew about the races allied with Voldemort.

But without a doubt Voldemort and his followers most powerful weapon was fear. The common people were deadly afraid of the Death Eaters and even more so of Voldemort. This was clearly shown when Harry had encountered the Death Eaters for the first time, a day when he saw hundreds of wizards and witches run away from the sight of a small group of Death Eaters.

According to professor Bell, during the first war people had become so afraid of Voldemort that they didn't even dare to utter the name. According to speculations a part of that fear came surprisingly due to Dumbledore. After his defeat of Grindewald, quit of few people saw him as the next coming of Merlin. so when Dumbledore failed to defeat Voldemort, many started seeing the dark lord as someone who was in the same league as the likes of Dumbledore and Merlin. The fact that he was the self-proclaimed heir of what many considered the darkest dark wizard to ever life didn't help any. Especially so when he proved it by speaking parcelmounth. Due to this many didn't even attempt to fight back, thinking that there was no way to fight someone so far out of their league.

Of course there was a very good reason to be afraid of the man. Say what you want about the man, but there was no denying the sheer power he commanded. Harry himself was extremely strong for someone his age, perhaps a by-product of being marked Voldemort's equal, Harry wasn't sure, but one thing he was pretty sure off, even with the elder wand at his side, he still doubted he could match Voldemort in terms of raw power and that wasn't even saying anything about the decades difference in experience and knowledge. In fact if Harry hadn't had his team to watch his back then he would surely have lost.

Still regardless if that fear was founded or not. The sheep would be believe anything if presented right. So maybe he could do something to Voldemort's reputation and diminish how feared he is a bit? If he could alter how people saw him they might take up arm against him, his followers might abandon him and his allies might sever ties. It was a longshot strategy, but it was something.

Harry slowly opened his eyes and smiled as he noticed that several stacks of parchments had disappeared from the room. Harry closed his eyes again and started planning, thinking and absorbing information.

XxX

Willing himself to leave his mindscape, Harry opened his eyes in the real world, moments later. He stood up and slightly shook his legs to get the blood flowing again.

After he had done that he picked up his wand from within its holster that had been lying on the nightstand and jabbed it before muttering, ''Tempus,'' Three green numbers formed out of the wand and formed: 9:15.

'Damn I have spent more time in my mindscape then I thought,' Harry thought with a slight frown. 'Nothing I can do about it now.'

Deciding to start on his plans for the day, he called. ''Toby!'' A moment later the elf appeared and made a deep bow to its new master. ''Master Harry Potter, sir, Toby is here!'' He said excitedly.

''Yes I can see that,'' Harry replied slightly amused before turning serious again. ''I have a couple rules for you so listen well.''

Toby immediately straighten up and gave Harry his complete attention.

''Okay first rule, keep my name short. I don't really care how you address me, but not an overly long name. You can address me as Harry or Potter or if you want to be formal master or sir.''

The elf nodded and replied, ''Understood master.''

''Second rule; you will only follow my orders, no one's else, unless I specifically order otherwise. ''

The elf nodded again and Harry gave his final rule, ''Third and final rule for the moment. Anything and everything you learn while being my elf is to be kept secret, again unless I order otherwise.''

''Toby understands, Toby will keep master's name short, will only obey him and will keep his secrets.''

Harry nodded, ''Good, I will be counting on you,'' The elf straightened up considerably at hearing this.

Harry then took one of his most prized possession form his neck. It was the Moleskine Pouch he had received from Hargrid for his fifteenth birthday. After digging through the contents for several moments he pulled out a small golden key from with the pouch.

''I want you to head to Gringotts. Show this to a Goblin there and tell him that your master has inherited this key from a Uncle of his. Your master and his Uncle didn't have the greatest relationship so your master is suspicious of authenticity of the Key. You were send to Gringotts to see if the Goblins could see if the key is real. If they allow you into a vault then clean it completely and bring the money here. Do not mention my name and don't argue with them, the first sign of danger and you leave.''

The elf accepted the key, bowed and popped away. Harry sighted, there was a distinct chance he had just ordered his only ally who's loyalty he was sure of, to his dead, but he needed recourses. Sure Dumbledore said that the Potters would provide for him, but he couldn't really count on that as it hadn't been part of the oath.

Harry sat back down his bed and took one of his ring off and laid it in his hand. He muttered. ''Now let's hear what went different between you and I.'' before flipping it over three time.

XxX

A fully clothed and ready for the day, Harry Potter stood before the front door of Potter manor. He hadn't encountered any of the other inhabitants of the manor yet and for that he was glad. It had taken him some time, but he had found the front door and was about to step through it when he heard the pop elves made using their form of apparition.

Turning his head around, Harry saw that it was the same elf as the one that had served food, yesterday, ''Barny,'' He greeted.

''Young master, young master, you shouldn't be leaving, master said that it is too dangerous for young master to go outside.''

Harry gave the elf a blank look before turning around again and opening the door. ''I am just going out for a walk. I will be fine.''

Not waiting for the elf to respond Harry walked out the door and into the fresh air. He took a moment to take in the peaceful scenery that stretched before him. Like the manor the ground surrounding Potter manor seem to be overly large, but there was no denying it was very well kept. The only thing that seemed to disturb the scenery were the six Quidditch goals he spotted in the distance.

A loud hoot of an owl broke the peaceful moment and Harry took that as his cue to move on. Drawing his wand again, he used it to conjure a simple back hooded cloak and donned it. He then made his way over to where he could feel the wards extent. Once he left the wards he pulled his hood on and Apparated away with a nearly silent pop.

With an equally silent pop Harry reappeared in front of the entrance leading to Diagon Alley. He knew better than to just trust Dumbledore so he wanted to see with his own two eyes just how bad the situation was here. If Muggle 'pets' are really allowed then there was a good chance that he would see it here as wizards are notorious for flaunting, if they can get away with it.

After tapping the correct combination, Harry stepped into the alley. What greeted him was definitely different than his first visit to the alley in his own universe. Maybe it was because he was only eleven back then and everything seemed just so new and wonderful, but now things seemed to look so much more grim and colder.

Keeping his head low and making sure his hood kept his head covered well, Harry started to walk through the alley, slowly taking things in. The more he observed the more disgusted he got. Dumbledore had not been lying as Harry had encountered several people who were yanking other people along on a leach. More often than not, those leached people were female and were wearing barely any clothing.

That was not the only thing, Harry had also walked past several stores that sported sign as, 'Mudbloods not allowed' and 'Purebloods only'. What disgusted Harry the most however was how the common people were just averting their gaze as they walked past one of the people pulling a 'pet' along. It truly disgusted him how many just seemed to have taken on a 'I don't see it so it isn't my problem,' attitude. 'Were those the people he was supposed the fight for?'

Harry mentally snorted at his own stupid question. Of course he wasn't going to fight for the sheep. He would fight for himself and those who were willing to watch his back. He would do what he could for those too young to defend themselves, but in the end it really wasn't his responsibility.

After walking for another couple of minutes he managed to pick up a familiar face in the crowd. 'Hello gullible idiot,' Harry thought gleefully as he started to follow the man.

The man didn't seem to notice he had a tail as he just kept walking, not once looking back. Once Harry was practically standing behind him he slowly drew his wand as not to draw attention to him. Once drawn he pointed the wand at the ribcage of the man and before the man could do anything he whispered, '' Imperio,''

Due to the close proximity of the wand to its target no one saw the spell being fired. ''Follow me,'' Harry ordered, loud enough for the man to hear, but not so loud that the people walking around them could hear, unless they had been paying attention specifically to them.

Harry then started walking toward one of the apparition points in the alley, closely followed by the man. Once they reached it, Harry still carrying his wand in his hand, stunned the man and caught him before he could fall. He then quickly Apparated away before anyone could notice.

Moments later Harry reappeared with a significant crack in a room that looked like it had been abandoned for a long time. He dumped the man he had been holding to the ground and waved his wand in a sweeping motion while thinking, 'Homenum Revelio.'

When it became clear he and the man were the only ones in the room, Harry cast a strong privacy charm around the room before making a minor proximity ward around the building that would tell him if anyone approached.

Harry then grabbed the motionless man from the ground and placed him in one of the chairs in the room. He then used a sticking charm to keep his feet to the ground and conjured rope before binding him. He then checked the pockets of the man and fished out a wand and what felt like a well filled money pouch and pocketed both items in his own pockets.

Harry then dragged a more comfortable looking chair from another side of the room to a place where he could face his prisoner. After that he cast a spell on himself that would alter his voice. His final touch before he would wake up the man was a spell the Weasley twins had taught him. It would basically hide his entire face while he was wearing his hood, except his eyes, which would glow red. The twins had originally used it as a prank spell, but there was no denying the intimidation factor.

Harry set down in the chair and took a deep calming breath. He was never much of an actor, but he hoped his next piece of acting would be good enough for his divide and conquer plan to work.

Pointing his wand and the bound man, Harry thought, 'Rennervate,'

The moment the spell hit, the man awoke and his eyes flew open. It didn't take long for the man to notice that he was bound and he briefly struggled against them until he seemed to have noticed Harry and said boy couldn't help the smile that graced his (hidden) face when he saw the man in front of him let out a shudder.

'' Welcome Walden Macnair, last of the noble house of Macnair.'' Harry rasped.

''Who the hell are you?'' The ministry executer exclaimed.

''You may call me lord Riddle,''

''Riddle? Never heard of it, you are obvious just a Mudblood.''

Harry let out a mirthless laugh, ''Serpensortia," He said as he pointed his wand to the ground and a large snake came out of it. .''§Don't kill him, but give him a good scare§'' Harry ordered the snake in parseltongue.

''I recommend you don't insult the true heir of Sytherin again like that,'' Harry said slowly as the snake started to coil himself around the rapidly paling man.

''But the dark lord is the …''

Harry cut him off with, ''That fake, Voldemort? That abomination that dares to call himself the heir of the great Sytherin, while he barely even resembles a human?''

''But he is a parseltongue.'' The bound man protested weakly as the snake started to apply some pressure.

''Mudbloods have stolen our magic, don't you think that fake can steal the ability of the greatest wizard to ever live?''

''And who said you didn't just do the same then?'' The man countered surprisingly logically.

''My full name is Tom Marvolo Riddle,'' Harry replied. ''Do your research yourself, you should know there are more than enough ways out there to check someone's lineage.''

''You will let me go?'' Macnair asked in surprise. ''Then why did you capture me in the first place?''

''Proper question,'' Harry replied. ''I want you to relay a warning to your colleagues. I will come after the fake shortly and I don't want proper blood to be spilled needlessly. Too many Purebloods have already died because of that imposter. I have yet to discover what the mudblood is attempting to do with this war, but one thing is clear, he is obvious not from a proper family as he isn't willing to use his real name and due to him pureblood lines are dying out left and right.''

Macnair remained silent as Harry continued talking to him and Harry could see his word left an impression on the man.

Harry leaned slightly forward as he stared the man in front of him right in the eyes. ''Will you convey my message, Walden Macnair? Will you protect the Pureblood lines?''

''I will …. Lord Riddle.''

Harry nodded, '' §Leave, §'' He hissed towards his snake, which uncoiled himself from the man and stated slithering away. He could have just used his magic to vanish the reptile, but his use of parseltongue would leave a more lasting impression.

Harry then dispelled the other restrained on the man and Macnair stood up quickly. Harry followed his movements closely, his wand never leaving the man, but when it became clear he wasn't going to do anything foolish, Harry too stood up and pulled the Death Eater's wand from his pocket.

''This is yours, I believe?'' Harry said silky as he handed the man his wand over. Macnair eyed Harry warningly for several seconds before accepting the wand and put it in his pockets.

''Before you leave, one last warning,'' Harry said ominously, ''While I would want to prevent wasting proper blood, I will not hesitate to cut down those who sully the pureblood name by bowing down like a mere peasant to that imposter, is that clear?''

The man nodded fearfully and when it became clear Harry didn't have anything more to say he quickly apparated away.

Harry sighted loudly as all the tension left his body. He plopped back down on the chair he just had vacated. That had surprisingly gone pretty well for a plan he had just come up with this morning.

He wasn't sure what exactly would happen next. From the top of his head, Harry could come up with at least several different actions Macnair could do after this meeting.

Best case scenario, he would renounce his allegiance toward Voldemort and join the newly presented 'heir of Sytherin,' while convincing as many fellow Death Eaters as possible to do the same. It was not a very likely scenario, but the chance was still there. The possibility of this scenario made him choose not to just torture information out of him and to return his wand. He had to act like a proper and civilised pureblood lord that would make a far more appealing person to serve than someone who regularly tortures his followers.

Of course there was also the distinct possibility that Macnair would immediately run to his master and tell him about this meeting. This was not something Harry was against. As far as he knew very few people were aware of Riddle's true origin. So when Voldemort heard about something calling himself Tom Riddle, then he was sure to act. How Harry wasn't entirely sure yet. Best case scenario he panics and does something stupid and reveals himself to the world at large, but even if he doesn't do that at the very least he knows that someone out there knows his past and that might cause some pressure.

Then there was the possibility that Macnair would do what Harry told him and check Riddle's past. Harry wasn't sure how much was out there to discover, but it might shake things up a little within their ranks. If he was really stupid then he might even involve the Goblins. Harry had heard about the rumours that the Goblins had the tools to create entire family three with just a drop of blood, but Harry always took those stories with a grain of salt. As far as he knew that was just one of the many ways Goblins profited of nativity of wizards and witches out there. If Macnair did that then he would most likely lose a lot of money.

Of course he could have used the Imperius curse to make the man do what he wanted, but realistically that wasn't possible. Not only would he not have access to a certain portion of his Core that would be devoted to upholding the curse for as long as he had to uphold the curse, but he honestly wasn't that proficient in that specific unforgiveable curse itself.

All three of the unforgivable besides being very draining were also very intent based. To fire a unforgiveable you truly had to want it effect to happen.

Harry hatted the Death Eaters more than enough to want to inflict insufferable pain and even death, but to completely control someone takes a different mind-set. Harry could fire the curse, but it was far from as effective as the other two curses and he could only use it for short periods of time and issue simple commands.

After several moments of silence, Harry realised he need to move, he stood up and removed the protections he had put up before he apparated away again.

XxX

Harry opened the front doors of Potter manor, which he had just apparated to. The moment he stepped through the door an elf popped in front of him. ''Young master is back!'' The elf said happily.

''Yeah … '' Harry said somewhat awkwardly, for some reason the elf in front of him reminded him a bit of Dobby, he sincerely hopped the elf would never try to 'rescue' him, ''Is there something I can do for you?''

''Master and Mistress are looking for you, young master.'' Barny replied. ''They were worried when they couldn't find you.''

''I did tell you I was going for a walk right?''

The elf nodded enthusiastically, ''Of course, but Masters didn't know where you went and they couldn't find you.''

''Ah,'' replied Harry absentmindedly. ''Hey Barny, I haven't eaten yet, do you think you can point me toward the Kitchen?''

''Young master wants to know where the kitchen are?'' Barny asked sounding truly confused. ''Why does young master wants to know that? Barny will just bring food to wherever young master wants to eat.''

Harry stared blankly at the elf for a moment. He could argue against it of course as he much rather prepared his own food (it's much harder to get poisoned that way), but if there is one thing he had learned in his seventeen then that is to not to argue with a house elf unless absolute necessary, you will usually just end with a headache if you do. That was why personal elves were so much better, Toby would have obeyed without question.

He reluctantly nodded, ''Okay Barny, could you bring something to my room then?''

''Of course, young master, what do you want?''

Harry waved him off, ''Toast or something, I don't really care, just don't go overboard.''

''Understood, young master.'' The elf said as he bowed before popping away.

XxX

Harry was back in his room, munching on a piece of toast he had just gotten from Barny, in front of him stood his personal elf. "How did it go?'' He inquired.

The elf bowed, ''The Goblins informed Toby that the vault hasn't been accessed in a while, but the vault is still being paid for. They also informed Toby that if a vault has a key then it is the responsibility of the vault owner to watch after the key. As it is not their responsibility they allowed Toby entry as long as Toby had the key.''

Harry raised an eyebrow in surprise, honestly this had been a longshot so he was pleased that it worked, ''That is good, So you have the gold?''

Toby nodded, albeit a bit sadly. ''Toby is sorry, but the Goblins demanded compensation. They wanted fifteen Galleons for the time I wasted.''

Harry nearly choked on his food at hearing that. Unless exchange were vastly different here then the Goblins had demanded roughly 75 pounds for something that couldn't have taken that long. "It's okay, Toby, you did clean it out completely right?''

Toby nodded, seemingly pleased Harry hadn't reprimanded him. ''Toby found empty trunks at the place where the other elves told me I should put the boxes with photos. Toby put them it in them.'' He said as he pointed to a row of trunks standing next to the wall.

Harry nodded and walked to the first trunk and opened it. Harry's eye widened as he saw that the trunk being loaded to the brim with coins. 'Jackpot!' He thought, while grinning like mad. Things were going surprisingly well today.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he hoped that it was the trust vault of his counterpart that he just emptied and not someone else's, but that thought quickly left as Harry's mind started working again, thinking about what he should do now he had some recourses.

First thing first, no one needed to know that he had this. As for as the other would know he was still without a single Knut. If Dumbledore kept his word and the Potters would provide for him then they might give him a vault of his own when it becomes clear that he doesn't have any money. No need to waste recourse unnecessary.

He quickly used his wand to shrink down all the trunks and put them in his Moleskine Pouch. Having done that, Harry turned to the waiting elf. ''You have done well, take some rest and report to the head elf here and ask of he or she has some work for you. You are to work for him or her until I call for you. Of course you don't obey any of the orders that might interfere with any of my standing orders.''

The elf bowed again and popped away, leaving Harry alone in the room.

* * *

**Author notes:**

For those wondering, no Harry does not know the entire story regarding Voldemort's birth. He only knows what he learned according to cannon in book 2 and 4. As there are no Horcrux in this story, there was no need for Dumbledore to waste an entire year giving those oh helpful 'lessons.'

**Next chapter: chapter 5: Indifference and passion. **


	5. Indifference and passion

**Chapter five: Indifference and passion**

_18 august 1997, Potter manor _

It's been several days since Harry arrived in this new universe and currently he was sitting in the Potter library and for once he was glad that the parents of his counterpart seemed to live over the top. The library was huge, easily rivalling the Hogwarts one.

He had spent most of the time of the last couple of days here. He had had access to some books while serving the militia, but nothing quite on this scale and Harry gladly took this chance to improve his knowledge on certain branches of magic.

There was also another reason he had spent most of his time here. Apparently he was 'grounded', the Potter elders hadn't taken him leaving the home to well and grounded him for his irresponsible behaviour.

It took all of his considerable willpower to not outright laugh in their faces. Who did they think they were? Still they provided him with food and shelter and Harry currently really didn't have anything to do outside, so he accepted his 'punishment' without saying anything, especially when he found the library.

Apparently pleased with his obedience they had taken him shopping under heavy glamours and now he at least had a decent wardrobe. Other than that he honestly hadn't seen them too often, he shared meals with them, but that was basically it. What little interaction he had with them was pretty strained. Every time he spend time with them he felt like they were trying to gain his favour, that on itself wouldn't be that bad, but the way they seemed to walk on eggshells when talking with him was very annoying. It felt like they were only saying things they thought he might want to hear. Considering they didn't know him at all that didn't really work.

Even after several days, to him they were still just Mr and Mrs Potter, two people who greatly resemble his parents physical appearance, but that was it.

Heck of the three other Potters in the manor, he was closest to the youngest. Of course 'closest' was very relative. His interaction with her was just a little more than with the other two, but at the very least she had become Rose instead of Ms Potter.

This was mostly due to the fact that she was also spending a lot of time in the library, apparently doing homework. Merlin, homework, the very thought of it was just weird to Harry. He guessed now that he was going back towards Hogwarts he had to do it again … maybe he should reconsider.

He always greeted her cordially when he spotted her. After him calling her Ms Potter a couple of times she had requested to call her Rose instead of Ms Potter, saying that it sounded just plain weird.

Harry hadn't really wanted to form attachments here and therefore had remained as polite as possible when addressing others, but even he had to admit it just fell weird addressing someone younger and with the same last name like that.

But other than the greetings they little to no interaction, he had seen her gaze at him curiously on occasion, but she didn't bother him and that fitted Harry just fine.

Currently Harry was reading a book called 'Curses and counter curses volume 4' it was a pretty dry text to read, but there were a number of useful curses in it that Harry hadn't know about yet. He was so absorbed in his book that he hadn't noticed a teenaged witch approach, closely followed by Rose.

''So this is Potter from some other world, huh?'' the lead girl asked.

Harry looked up from his book and saw Rose standing behind a girl who looked to be somewhere her age. The new girl had grey eyes that looked slightly familiar and had brown curly hair that framed her face. She was a bit taller than Rose, who was over a head shorter than Harry.

The difference in height was even more pronounced due to the difference in their postures. While Rose was constantly looking down, the new girl stood tall and proud. The two of them together made a slightly strange sight to Harry.

The newcomer was looking at Harry with a less than pleased expression. It was kind of a mix of how aunt Petunia used to look at him and how Ron used to look at pretty much any Slytherin, but there was also a hint of something else mixed in there; wariness?

''Hello,'' Harry greeted politely, while at the same assessing potential threat level, ''I am Harry Potter and you are …''

The girl stared at him for a moment seemingly thinking whether to answer or not, eventually she did. ''Alexandra Black,''

Harry nodded, ''Nice to meet you Ms Black,'' He said while thinking, 'Is this Vance and Sirius kid?' She did look a bit like she had inherited some physical traits of both, so it was highly likely.

''Was there something I can help you with?''

''Why are you here?''

Harry tilted his head slightly to the side, ''I am reading a book.'' He deadpanned, knowing that was probably not what she meant.

''That is not what I mean,'' She said angrily, ''The Harry Potter I know does not read voluntary, he isn't this damn quite or so overly polite!''

''Ah, well I am not the Harry Potter you know, am I?'' He replied easily. Verbally sparing with angry people was way too easy, especially if you are used to talk with the likes of Astoria Greengrass. It's probably how Malfoy felt whenever he taunted him.

''No, you aren't,'' The girl admitted, seemingly not pleased she had to concede a point there. '' Apparently you are a Harry Potter who is summoned here to fight a war again you-know-who and yet you sit here just reading without a care in the world. Which according to Rose you have been doing for the past couple of days.''

''Yes, and ….?''

His nonchalant attitude didn't seem to please the girl too much as she visibly reddened. ''You go through a life changing experience and yet you sit here without a care in the world.''

Harry would have snorted if he hadn't thought that would have set the girl of badly. This girl, Alexandra reminded him a bit of himself before he gained better control over his emotions.

''Accept, adept and move on.'' He said as the memory of who said those words to him for the first time sprang to the forefront of his mind.

XxX

_Harry stared angrily at the girl who had replaced Su, after she had been killed in action. It was a Vampire who had introduced herself as Clara. Harry hadn't partially liked her fro__m the moment he had first met her. Maybe it was because all the bad things he had heard about Vampires in general, maybe it was because her joining the team really brought home the fact that Su would never come back again or maybe it was her nonchalant and__ flippant attitude regarding the war that really put him off. _

_They had just finished their first battle with her on the team and Harry had been utterly disgusted with the way she had fought._ _Killing is one thing, but what she did was more like a __slaughter than anything._

_He had thought he had seen the worst after the massacre, but seeing Clara using her vastly superior strength and speed to literally rip her enemies apart before sucking them dry felt really wrong._

_Currently he had told Clara to stay behind, he knew if she was going to be part of his team then he needed to talk with her or otherwise he would never trust her to watch his back._

''_Something wrong, Harry?'' She asked with a bright smile. A smile that had been pretty munch on her face __since their first meeting, it never once leaving her face, even while she was in the middle of ba__t__tle. Harry really wanted to hex it off._

''_How can you kill them so brutally and not have a shed of remorse?'' _

''_Remorse? For killing my food?'' She asked innocently. _

_Harry looked disgusted at her. ''An answer I expected from a dark creature.'' He muttered, normally he wasn't that prejudiced, but with everything happening lately and after everything he had heard about vampires he couldn't help himself ._

_If__ the vampire was insulted she didn't show it instead she replied with a still cheerful voice. ''A reply expected of a narrow sighted mortal.''_

''_What?'' Harry asked angrily as he gripped his wand._

"_I said you are narrow sighted, you hold me by your human__ standards, but I am not a human I am a vampire.''_

''_You were once human, weren't you?''_

_For the first time in the conversation the girl in front of him turned slightly more serious as her facial features darkened slightly.''_

''_I was yes, but that was a long time ago.'' _

_Harry was taken aback for a moment by her response. The immortal in front of him looked to be in her late teens, but who knows how old she really was? For a moment Harry felt truly young as the realisation struck that this seemingly teenage girl could be even older than Dumbledore had been. _

"_I was a witch, attended Hogwarts like you and had pretty decent social life, but then I was turned.''_

_Harry decided to remain quite, feeling this was a moment of opening up he wouldn't experience __o__f__ten._

''_Vampires are never looked kindly upon ,they weren't back then and they aren't right now, I am sure you know that. My friends, my family they all abandoned me, while at the same time I was going mad due to the bloodlust .I needed blood to survive,__ but I still had my morals.''_

''_What did you do?''_

''_After a while the thirst for blood became too much and I drank for the first time, it was then that I accepted that I was indeed a vampire and that I would never be able to go back to my former life. __I sought out a vampire clan, they accepted me, trained me how to control the gifts and curses that came with my race and eventually I developed a new life within the coven.''_

_Harry was silent for a moment. In all honestly he was a bit moved by the story. Being abandoned like that in what appeared to be her lowest point of her life must have hurt a lot. He himself had some experience with being abandoned and it hurts, badly. _

_Her serious demeanour disappeared as her smile reappeared on her face. One which__ Harry just n__o__ticed looked a little to forced._

''_Life has the tendency to screw you over more often than not, but you can't stop moving due to that – those who stop moving will die, the only thing you can do when something unexpected is thrown into your life is to accept it, adept to the new situation and move one. Believe me you will live longer if you do that.'' _

_XxX_

Of course regardless how wise those words sounded the whole thing was a lot harder than he made it sound. Usually the three steps were accompanied by a good amounts of Firewhiskey and spending time in his mindscape where it just seemed to be easier to sort things trough.

''Accept and move one?'' Alex asked angrily. ''You were brought here to fight a war against you-know-who and you just sit here nonchalantly are you really that arrogant that you don't think you need to worry.''

''Then what should I do? Run around like a chicken who got his head cut off?'' He asked sarcastically. ''Voldemort is a single man, an extremely powerful and hard to kill one, but still a man. One which I already fought multiple times, so no I am not arrogant, he is stronger than me I know that, he is more knowledgeable than me I know that too, but what do you think I am doing right now?''

''You can't possibly think you can ever reach the level of you-know-who?''

Harry shook his head, ''Not anytime soon, no, but the stronger I get the more a chance I have to survive an encounter with the man and if I survive I can study and get stronger.''

Alex was silent for a moment and then she demanded, ''Duel me.''

Harry blinked in surprise, this was not something he had expected. ''I beg your pardon?''

''You claim to be so strong, I want to see if you really have a mediocre of skill or if you are just arrogantly boasting.''

Harry thought it over for a moment, mentally going over the pros and cons of her request. If she was really the daughter of Sirius and Vance, then she was the daughter of one of the better Aurors he had met (assuming she was a Auror here too), perhaps she had received some training? If so then she might provide a good sparring partner. After all he had been cooped in the house for the last couple of days and he really needed to keep his skills fresh. The only reason to say no he could think up was that it would show his skill level, but to be honest he wouldn't be able to hide that for long anyway. So after thinking it over for a couple moments he decided to indulge her 'request.'

''Sure …'' Harry drawled. ''Where? I highly doubt we can duel here.''

''The manor has a duelling room, we can go there.'' She answered.

Harry blinked in surprise, ''Of course it has,'' He muttered after a moment.

XxX

When the trio reached the so called 'duelling room' Harry took a moment to take it all in. In all honestly the room wasn't all that much. The room was large, but almost completely bare. He could feel some kind of magic covering the walls, floor and roof, he wasn't sure what it was, but it didn't feel harmful so he ignored it.

Harry watched as his opponent strode over to the other side of the room and took position there. Wand in her hand and look of fierce determination in her eyes. For some reason Harry had the feeling this duel meant more to this girl than he knew.

Mentally shrugging, figuring it really wasn't his problem, Harry took up a position facing her, hands still in his pockets, a neutral expression on his face as he stared down his scowling opponent.

''So … any rules?'' He asked.

''First to give up, knocked out or disarmed loses,'' She replied as she gripped her wand even tighter.

Harry nodded and used his left hand to pull his wand from his right wand holster, before he switched the wand to his dominant hand. The wand he was currently wielding was his old Phoenix and holy wand, using the elder wand seemed a bit of overkill.

''Rose, will you act as a referee?'' Alex asked.

The girl nodded and went to stand between them. ''Duellists take position,''

Both Harry and Alex raised their wands in a ready position.

''Bow to your opponents.''

Harry dipped his head slightly while Alex gave a jerky nod.

''And begin!'' Rose exclaimed as she sprung backward.

Alex moved first and exclaimed, '' Expelliarmus!''

Harry had to snort at the irony of her spell choice. Just moments before he had compared her to his pre-war personality and now this. He shook his head slightly as he sidestepped the spell rather easily and pointed his wand at her forehead and fired a silent spell. ''And dead.'' He muttered as the paintball spell hit home.

''What?'' Alex muttered as her hand went to her forehead where the red paint was dripping down, she was looking at him with a look of pure disbelief.

''I hit you with a harmless spell,'' Harry said, ''I could have just as easily used a lethal spell. You lost.'' Before thinking, 'Badly at that.'

She scowled, ''Fine, I lost I want a rematch,'' She demanded.

''How will thing be different?'' Harry asked. He honestly was disappointed he had hoped that Vance's daughter would prove to be challenging enough that duelling with her would at least count as training, but at this level …

''What do you mean?'' She asked angrily.

''I beat you effortlessly. Do you even know what you did wrong in that duel or are you going to repeat the same mistakes?'' He asked.

''What I did wrong?'' Her anger seemed to subdue a bit and now she was looking at Harry with a look that still wasn't the nicest, but was more akin to curiosity.

''Ah, for example why did he use the disarming hex? It's arguably the most useless spell out there. There are quite a number of people out there who at least have a minimum of skill in wandless magic and there are also an even greater number of people who carry secondary wands, a bone breaker curse to the wand arm is much more effective.''

''What else?'' She asked her tone was blank, from what Harry could tell she seemed to be a prideful type and asking for him to point her flaws out like this must be painful for her, but her desire to improve seem to prevail over her pride.

''You stood still, as I could see that you weren't going to move, aiming for me became extremely easy, you stopped casting after you first spell, assume I will block or dodge and just keep attacking, don't not ever allow your opponent set the pace of the duel.''

''Anything else …?'' She asked sarcastically.

Harry shrugged, ''The duel lasted seconds, how many mistakes do you think you can make?'' He asked somewhat rhetorically. Didn't they teach you how to duel duelling during DADA after Voldemort came back?''

Alex shrugged, ''The last two DADA professors didn't do much practical, Uncle Moony in my first year was more focused on dark creatures so we didn't learn much spell work from him, Professor Moody did teach us a bit more practical, but both professor Umbridge and professor Weasley taught almost completely out of the book.''

'Umbridge? Why does that name sound familiar?' Harry thought with a small frown before a figurative light bulb appeared above his head as he remembered where he had heard the name. She had been Fudge's undersecretary, but more importantly she had been part of the treaty with the vampires. Well part of it in a sense anyway – the vampires had demanded she would be the first one to be given to them – Harry had never found out exactly what she had done to be put in the bad graces of the immortals like that, but what he could gather it had something to do with her pushing through legalisations that had some less than pleasant consequences for the vampires. Whatever those legalisations were must have been bad as even Clara lost her smile whenever Umbridge was mentioned.

'And professor Weasley, why of why did that sound so very wrong?' Harry thought before asking, ''Who exactly is professor Weasley?'' He then mentally chanted, 'Please don't let it be one of the twins, Please don't let it be one of the twins, this universe is already messed up enough as it is.'

''Percy Weasley,'' Rose supplied and Harry turned his attention to her as she spoke up for the first time since beginning the duel. ''Percy Weasley taught us in our fourth year, but I heard professor Umbrige is coming back this year.''

''Ah,'' Harry replied elegantly, not sure how to respond to that news on one hand it wasn't of the twins, but on the other hand he really couldn't see Percy of all persons teaching, maybe that is way he only taught for one year?

He then turned back to Alex, "What about a rematch?'' He asked, from the way she moved around the manor she seemed to come here often and if he was going to spend another half a month here then perhaps he could bring her a bit closer to his skill level. Besides if war was going to break out then Voldemort would target Hogwarts sooner than later, so the more skilled his fellow students were the less Death Eaters he would have the fight. Perhaps if he was very lucky if he taught her she could teach other students? Maybe he should involve Rose to? She didn't seemed to have the attitude of a fighter from what he had observed of her, but then again neither had Susan before the war and look how she turned out.

A determined look appeared on the girl's face and she readied her wand again, ''Ready when you are!''

Harry nodded, ''Good, now dodge,'' He said before firing a wordless stunner straight at her. The girl's eyes widened as she jumped to the side in just the nick of time.

''That was an extremely wasted movement,'' Harry commented to the girl who was still lying on the ground. "If this was a real duel then I could have finished you off the moment you hit the ground. A single step to the side would have been more than enough to dodge.''

Alex slowly stood up again before muttering, ''Again,''

Harry nodded, if anything the girl deserved some points for her spirit. After giving her a moment to get back into a stance Harry repeated his earlier actions and fired a stunner. Harry observed a brief look of conflict crossed the girl's eyes before she flicked her wands upwards the tell-tale sign of a shield charm.

Harry shook his head at her action, shielding was never recommended when duelling, not only did you waste precious energy, you also couldn't attack, unlike when you doge. Besides a spell that breakthrough a shield can have some nasty consequences. Harry was personally reminded of that every day as he stared in the mirror.

Before Alex had even finished the incantation for her shield Harry had already cast his follow up spell, a Bombarda, aimed straight at what he knew the centre of the shield would appear. Her shield appeared and moments later, Harry's stunner impacted closely followed by the explosion hex, making the shield flash bright blue for a moment before vanishing completely, Alex stumble a couple of steps back to the backslash.

''You stood still again,'' Harry observed aloud.

Alex glared at him, but this time she didn't wait for Harry to attack, she initiated the attack by shouting, ''Stupefy!''

Harry nodded in approval as she sidestepped the spell, ''Good, don't wait for your opponent, you set the pace for the duel.'' He then quickly had to move again as this time she hadn't waited to see if the spell hit as she in short succession had fired two spells one slightly to the left of his former position and the other straight at him.

''Move!'' Harry commanded as he fired a stinging hex straight at her. This time she did move as he wanted as she stepped to the side, although Harry noticed she didn't immediately followed up with a return spell, it seemed she needed all her concentration to dodge.

''Good,'' He complimented, ''You seemed to be able to dodge beam-style spells. Now how do you stack up against conjuration?'' He asked before thinking, 'Avis!' A loud boom came out of his wand and group of small birds shot out of his wand tip and straight at his opponent.

A brief look of panic spread across the female Black's face before she seemed to squish it and she pointed her wand at the incoming birds and quickly made a wand movement before exclaiming, '' Incendio!''

A jet of flames sprouted from her wand and took care of the birds in a manner of seconds. Harry would have applauded her for her tactic if not for the simple fact that she was lying on the ground again.

The moment she had seen the birds she had taken his eyes of him to concentrate on them. That was a mistake as moments after the girl had fired the fire she was hit by a full body binding spell which was fired by Harry.

''Not only did you take your eyes of your opponent you also stopped moving … again.'' Harry deadpanned before undoing the spell on her.

XxX

Meanwhile in another part of Potter manor, the two eldest inhabitants of the manor were cuddled up next to each other on a couch.

''It's not working Lily,'' The man complained, ''Our son is now back for several days and he is still so distant.''

The woman, named Lily sighted tiredly, ''Albus did warn us that he wouldn't open easily. We just need to be patient with him. He will open up to us sooner or later.''

''But what if doesn't Lily?'' James asked, ''You heard him, he was asking about the werewolf, he is the boy-who-lived and heir to a prominent light family yet he obviously didn't receive the proper guidance. How will we able to teach him if we don't interact with him at all?''

Lily stayed silent for a couple more moments before she replied. ''At least he listened to us when we told him he couldn't go outside anymore, that is progress. And in a couple of weeks he will be going back to Hogwarts, maybe being surrounded by his housemates will help him?''

James nodded silently as he cuddled closer to his wife.

XxX

_19 august 1997, Potter manor _

Harry was once again sitting in the library of Potter manor, yesterday's meeting with the Black girl had been interesting in his opinion. She didn't practically seem to like him, Harry wasn't sure why; he hadn't seen her in any of the pictures his counterpart had in his room before he had removed them so he doubted they were close, heck perhaps it was even the opposite and there were hostile towards each other and her feelings toward his counterpart were carried over to him?

Regardless of how she felt about him, there was no denying her drive to improve. With guidance, he truly believe she could become a force to be reckoned with. The only problem was he didn't know what her intentions were in the upcoming conflict. He would be foolish to train her if they end up at opposing sides.

Perhaps he could get her to swear a unbreakable vow not to harm him? That would require some serious convincing as no sane person would just make a unbreakable vow and at the moment he knew too little about her to know how to convince her. Still it was something to consider.

He turned the page of the book he had been reading and continued reading the next page. The book he was currently reading was called Dangerous magical creatures and how to defend against them. He was reading the section dedicated to the Boggart.

He hadn't seen one since his fourth year and he knew how to combat them, but for some reason he felt if he were to encounter one now it would be much more difficult. It was kind of ironic, but the longer he lived, the stronger he had gotten, but on the other hand the longer he lived the more bad experiences he had experienced, something both Boggarts and Dementors can thrive on.

Harry laid the book back on the table he was sitting at. The information in it was nothing new, he had hoped to find how Boggarts exactly knew what your deepest fear was and find a counter against it, but no such luck.

Deciding to leave that particular subject for now, Harry moved on to one of his other on-going projects; learning if there were any major differences between his universe and this one, besides the obvious ones he already knew.

To do that he had started skimming trough history books. He wasn't really looking through them closely. Not only would that take way and way too much time there was also the fact that he had never delved to deeply in history in his own world so he couldn't compare the two in detail even if he wanted to. Still he knew about the major events in history and any major difference in them should be easy to spot. So far he hadn't founded anything noteworthy.

He had also ordered his elf, after learning it could read to go through the Daily Prophet every day and summarise any important article when he called for him. After all it would be pointless to learn about the past if you can't keep up with the present. As such he called for his elf so he could deliver his daily report.

''Report,'' Harry ordered as soon as the elf appeared.

The elf bowed and knowing what his master expected began speaking. ''Ministry employee, Walden Macnair has been admitted into St Mungo with severe injuries, how he got them is unknown. He is currently comatose, they suspect he will remain in that state for a while.''

Harry nodded, making a mental note to keep track of his situation and to pay him a visit when he return to the land of the living, preferably after he got his hands on some truth serum. He motioned for the elf to continue which he did.

''A family of a Muggleborn witch was found murdered, prime suspect is Peter pettigrew.''

Harry once again motioned for the elf to continue, it was harsh, but there was little he could do with that information. When the elf didn't continue, Harry asked ''Was that the only noteworthy news?'' It wouldn't surprise him, more often than not the Daily Prophet seemed to be more like a gossip tabloid than a real newspaper.

The elf shifted from feet to feet before he revealed today's copy of the newspaper, ''Toby thinks master would want to read this for himself. Harry accepted the paper and took one look at the front-page and he knew why the Elf thought he would want to read it for himself.

The whole front page had only article; which was titled; **Boy-who-lived-who-died-who-lives-again?** Harry groaned at reading it, making the mental promise to hex the first idiot who calls him that.

The article wasn't as bad as he expected. Him arriving from an alternative universe was actually half decent explained, well at least by the wizarding world standards. There was no mention why he was here or Harry's past and there were a couple of digs at Dumbledore for bringing a 'innocent' child here without asking for his consent while at the same time praising the wonders of magic for bringing the saviour of the wizarding world back, but overall Harry couldn't complain about the article. Nothing really bad was written about him and it would come out sooner or later that he was here anyway. The only thing Harry reminded himself to do after reading this article was to ask around how the Prophet managed to obtain this information.

* * *

**Author notes:**

Wow originally Harry and Alex were only going to have a small first meeting in the library. Not sure were that whole Duelling tutoring thing suddenly came from, but I liked it!

For those wondering the flashback happened pretty early in the war. Harry was still a bit naïve back then. His process from innocent school boy to what he is now was a gradual process so in some flashbacks he may seem a bit more averse to fighting/killing than others.

**Edit**: So this chapter introduced the daughter of Sirius and as I know some people are probably going to ask this so I will tell you this right now. Just because a boy meets a girl does not mean an instant romantic relationship. Alexandra Black will have a role to play in this story, just like Rose has her own role and just like Daphne will have hers when she appears.


	6. Preparations

**Chapter six: Preparations**

_20 august 1997, Potter manor _

Once again Harry had been dragged out of the library by Alex which had challenged him to another duel. Harry would have thought that after her rather humiliating defeats she would stay away longer, but it seemed she had learned something new as she was brimming with confidence.

Taking his position opposite from her, Harry patiently waited, Rose wasn't here today and he doubted she would bow if not instructed, so he waited to see if he was right and she had learned something new.

He didn't have to wait long as, as soon as they were both in a ready position Alex trusted her wand straight at him and exclaimed, ''φωτιά!'' The moments she said the incantation large amounts of blue flames sprouted out and headed straight for him.

Harry's relaxed composure faltered for just a small moment. He had to admit he hadn't expected this, there was no denying the sheer heat he felt approaching, his instincts were screaming at him that if those flames hit him then the results would be very unpleasant for him.

Knowing that he would never make it if he was to try to draw his primary wand he used his holy wand which was already in his hand and bellowed '' Protego Maxima!'' for once choosing not to do it non-verbally as he didn't want to chance it and perhaps he need the additional power the words would provide.

A bright blue shield sprang to live as it covered Harry entire body, moments later the fire impacted on the shield and even trough Harry was safe he could still feel the heat. After assaulting the shield for several seconds, the magically conjured fire slowly started to disappear until finally it disappeared completely and a heavily sweating Harry dropped his shield.

He immediately noticed the state of his opponent, she was slouched down on the ground , her breathing heavy and her face pale. She seemed to be in a state of shock as she kept muttering things like, ''How – it shouldn't be that strong? – it didn't do that the other times.''

Harry stared down at her for a moment, the pale face and the heave breathing were tell-tale signs of magical exhaustion, after another moment or two of observing he concluded that her shock was also clearly not faked. Having concluded that Harry realized this was some kind of accident and not yet another attempt on his life. He briefly wondered if he should worry about just how apathetic he had become to life and death situations, but quickly dismissed that thought. He had more important things to worry about.

He walked over to the girl and looked down on her, ''That spell, it was Greek wasn't it?'' He questioned.

Alex tried to answer, but it become quickly clear that the exhaustion made it too difficult to talk. Harry made a sound of annoyance before calling Toby.

''Can you try to find if there is any Pepperup Potion in the manor?''

The elf nodded, disappeared and was back again in less than twenty seconds with a small vial. ''Here you go, master.'' The elf said as he handed the potion over to Harry.

Harry nodded and thanked the elf before dismissing him. He put the vial in Alex's shaking hand and after he made sure she didn't immediately dropped it he took a step back as she drunk the entire vial.

It took a couple of seconds, but when the potion kicked in she visibly straightened up, as energy started to flow through her veins and steam out of her ears. She attempted to stand up, but it became quickly clear that she didn't have enough energy for that so instead she wrapped her arms around her legs as she took a seated position.

" I – I am – S – Sorry,'' She said trough gritted teeth, it was clear to Harry that apologising didn't come easy to the girl or at the very least to him.

Harry sat down in front of her, sitting in a lotus position, he gave her a blank look for a moment before her gave her a smile that was so fake that even a child could see through it, ''Don't worry, you don't have to apologise for nearly killing me.'' He said in fake cheerful tone.

''I didn't know the flames would be that strong!'' She defended herself even though she did cringe for a moment at Harry's words. ''When I practiced the spell was never this strong, nor this draining. I thought I found a spell to beat you, I didn't want to kill you!''

Harry nodded, he had come to that conclusion himself already, if had even the slightest suspicion that this girl wanted to kill him then she wouldn't have been sitting there.

''So … I ask again was that spell Greek?''

Not sure where Harry was going with this, but feeling she could hardly refuse to answer such a simple question after what she just did she answered that yes the incantation was Greek.

''You do know that spells based on Greek incantations are a lot more emotional based than the ones based on Latin?'' Harry asked.

From the look on her face it became clear that she hadn't know, but she did seem to immediately comprehend just why her spell was so much stronger just now than when she practiced it.

Harry stood up and turned around before leaving some parting words, ''Either you have an extremely strong competitive streak or you have something against me for the spell to be so powerful. I can't do anything about the first, but if it is the later then I don't know why you feel like that. I met you for the first time a couple of days ago, I have never met you before that, not here or in my own reality.'' Having said those words Harry left the room.

XxX

_22 august 1997, Potter manor _

The four Potters were eating their breakfast in silence. Every now and then James seemed like he wanted to say something, but shut his mouth again after a moment.

It was then that Barny entered the dining room closely followed by a stern looking older woman, Harry easily recognised.

''Minerva,'' Lily greeted warmly, ''Come in, come in, do you want to join us for breakfast?''

The older woman shook her head, ''No Lily thank you, I am only here to deliver Ms Potter's Hogwarts letter and to discuss the upcoming year with Mr Potter.

''Of course, sit down.'' James said as he gestured to empty seat next to Harry at the head of the table.

The professor gave a crisp nod and first gave a sealed envelope to Rose before taking her indicated seat. ''Now then Mr Potter,'' She began, ''As you probably can figure out this is a highly unusual situation.''

Harry nodded and motioned her to go on. When the woman did continue speaking again Harry heard a faint grasp from his other side, slightly moving his head to the side, Harry noticed a shocked looking Rose looking at a badge she was holding under the table. After a moment she seemed to come out of her shock and she put the badge back in the envelope.

'' … as such the headmaster has decided that it is for the best that you decided which courses to follow on which level, although we will retain the right to put you in a lower year if you don't perform adequately.''

Not sure what he missed, but agreeing on the last part, Harry said, ''I wish to follow seventh year classes for Transfigurations, Charms and DADA and to take my NEWT at the end of the year for those. I also wish to follow fifth year Ancient Runes and take my OWL in that one.''

''I have no qualms welcoming you in my NEWT class if you prove to be skilled enough and I am sure my other two colleges wouldn't either. May I ask why you only want to do OWL level Ancient runes?''

Harry shrugged, ''I never actually took the elective in my own universe, but I did study it quite a bit in my free time. I doubt I will be able to take my NEWT in it, as I have seen an old NEWT exam Hermione studied once, but OWL should be more than doable especially after a full year of study.''

McGonagall nodded as she wrote some things down on a piece of parchment, ''That's three NEWT classes and one OWL class, any other class? Potions or Herbology, perhaps?''

Harry shook his head, ''No offence against professor Sprout, but Herbology was never the most useful of subjects. As for potions … well I haven't touched a cauldron since I left Hogwarts and I can't say I miss it, besides its probably for the best if I stay as far away from Snape as possible.''

''That is professor Snape, Mr Potter and whatever dislike you may have for the man shouldn't come in the way of your education.''

Harry's facial expression which had been pleasant until now turned cold. '' He might not be exactly the same man, but a man looking exactly the same and with the same name has verbally abused me for five years, is the **worst **teacher I have met, has killed Dumbledore and countless other including some of my friends. So no I don't think it is a good idea for me to get even remotely close to that man.'' He wasn't a coward, but only a fool would seek out confrontations, where winning would gain him nothing.

The room was silent for a moment and Harry could see a smug look on James face, then Harry spoke up again, ''Besides like I said I don't really care for potions, I have had to drink more than enough of them over the years, I really don't want to know what exactly is in them.''

''What about Muggle studies?'' Lily suggested, ''I teach that and I would gladly welcome you into my class. I can even give you additional tutoring if you need it to catch up.''

''I was Muggle raised,'' Harry deadpanned. Finding that suggestion so pointless that he didn't even feel the need to elaborate, instead he turned to the Transfiguration professor.

''Professor, will I be sorted or will I just return to my old house?''

''As you are technically new to this Hogwarts, professor Dumbledore has decided that you will take the same path as the first years.''

Harry blanched at hearing this, he had been lucky in his first year, but several times after that there was very bad weather on September the first. He sincerely hoped that wasn't the case when he was crossing the lake.

Misreading his look, James said ''Don't worry, Harry, you are a Potter, I am sure you will return to your house the moment the hat touches you.''

Harry ignored the man as he thought why Dumbledore wanted him to go through the standard sorting process. He honestly doubted that it was because he never went to this Hogwarts. Perhaps it had more of an impact if he arrived like that? Harry had mixed feelings about that. People tended to live longer the less they stand out, for Harry that would be impossible, but he at least could try to minimise it. On the other hand this would present a perfect opportunity to address the entire hall at once.

''Thank you professor, I assume I will receive my booklist shortly?''

XxX

Fifteen minutes later and breakfast had just ended. McGonagall left with the promise of sending a letter listing his school supplies and breakfast had continued like normal.

At the moment he was walking besides Rose who like him had the tendency to leave the company of the elder Potter's as soon as politely was possible. Even with the rather limited interaction with the three other Potters Harry could see that the relationship between the girl next to him and her parents were less than good.

He hadn't questioned anyone regarding the story behind it, as for one it would be rather rude and more importantly he really didn't want to get into the whole family drama. Still he could be polite when the situation called for it, especially to the person who would have a position of power in the place he was going to, so he said. ''Congratulations on making prefect.''

Rose who had been walking alongside him seemingly in deep thought looked startled as he addressed her, ''What?''

''Congratulation on making prefect,'' He repeated patiently.

''Oh uh thanks I guess,'' She replied as if uncertain what to make of his compliment. ''I didn't expect someone like me to get chosen.''

Harry shrugged, not that Rose could see it as she was still staring ahead. ''I can't say I know you year mates well, but if professor Spout choose you, then you must be qualified.''

They were silent for a couple of moments longer until Rose spoke up again and this time she did look at Harry, ''Did something happen between you and Alex?''

''Ms Black?'' Harry questioned.

Rose snorted slightly and for the first time he actually saw her smile a little bit. ''Do you call everyone by their title and last name or something?'' She questioned at which Harry merely shrugged. ''But yes, I meant 'Ms Black' ''She said as she made air quotes while saying the name. ''So did something happen?''

'She nearly killed me,' Harry thought, but decided not to voice that out loud, or at least not be so direct with the truth. ''Why?'' He questioned.

Rose was silent for a moment seemingly thinking how to formulate her answer before she spoke up, ''After you duelled with her the first time, she went to her father's library to search for a spell that could beat you. After she found something and mastered the spell she went to challenge you, but when she came back she was far more silent and subdued than normal and she told me she didn't want to talk about it.''

''Really?'' Harry mused quietly, he hadn't expected she would take it that badly, ''She lost control over one of her spells, I assume it is the one you mentioned she studied.''

''Lost control, how?''

Harry shrugged, ''As I don't know theoretic part the spell, so I can only speculate,'' He said before elaborating, ''From what I observed it was a spell which strength is determined either by intent or emotional state, considering the langue it is most likely the later. If it is the later she must have felt some pretty strong emotions as she depleted her entire magical core in that one spell.''

Rose was silent for a moment seemingly going over Harry's word, ''I see,'' She muttered after several moments of silence had passed. ''Thank you,'' She said before turning around and walking away with a determined look on her face, one which Harry could definitely say he had never seen on her face.

XxX

_23 august 1997, Potter manor_

Harry was sitting on his bed with the Marauder's Map on his lap. The map had been one of the few things he had stashed away in his Moleskine Pouch, shortly after activating it Harry could happily conclude that this map was calibrated to this universe Hogwarts, how he wasn't exactly sure, then again he really didn't know how the map worked in the first place. Still seeing Severus Snape on the map made it clear the map no longer showed the castle of his own universe.

The map certainly would make moving around Hogwarts undetected even easier. The only problem was where this universe version of the map was and of there were made any more copies. He had tried the summoning charm, but that didn't work, so either the map was destroyed or it was spelled against summoning.

Harry was pulled out of his thoughts as he heard someone try to open his room. He had taken to locking the door so that didn't work. The locking charm he had placed on the door wasn't particularly strong, but it didn't have to. Usually one's action say a lot more about a person than words. Whoever was standing behind the door already did the wrong thing by trying to open the door instead of knocking, but the next course of action of the person would really determine how Harry would see the person; would he/she knock or would the person use magic to enter a locked room?

Harry didn't have to wait long as a moment later the person knocked on his door. Harry's neon-green eye glowed for a moment before he picked his wand from his nightstand and cast a unlocking charm on the door. ''Come in professor,'' Harry called as he stuffed the map away and stood up.

The man opened the door and took the room in, ''Done a bit of redecorating, Harry?''

''It wasn't mine style and the photos were a bit weird for me to see.'' Harry answered as he gestured to one of the armchairs in the room, ''Please take a seat, headmaster.''

As the man took a seat, Harry sat back down on his bed. ''What can I do for you, headmaster?''

''Ah yes, I manage to fulfil part of your demands, you now officially exist in this world.'' He said, ''The Muggle side took a bit longer than expected, but I managed to do it.''

''Ah, so it is thanks to you that I am in the paper?''

''I haven't contacted the prophet if that is what you ask, but I had to tell the ministry, they in turn probably informed the Daily Prophet.''

''I also have the diary that describes the ritual here,'' The headmaster said as he fished an old looking diary out of his robes.

''Thank you headmaster could you put it and the paperwork on my desk?'' He asked before a thought shot in his head, 'I only made him vow to answer when I ask, so why provide information so willingly?'

It took him a moment, but then a suspicion entered his head, 'If he willingly gives me information then he might be holding something back while I think I have everything … smart,' He admitted.

Going on his suspicion he asked, ''Does this diary contain all the information regarding the ritual?''

Unable to lie do to his oath, Dumbledore answered, ''A large number of Runes were used during the ritual, I have several pages of notes on what each of them do.''

Harry nodded, it would save him a lot of time if had those notes, ''Then I would like a copy of those notes. You can give them when I am back at Hogwarts.''

Dumbledore nodded absentmindedly, ''Will do, my boy, now how are you settling in?'' He asked steering the conversation completely away from the original path. ''I heard from Lily and James that after your little outing you spend your entire time in the Library.''

Harry took his words in and was immediately glad he had kept his distance from the others, seriously didn't they understand the concept of privacy? Still that statement was easily answered. ''I thought you as head of an educational establishment would approve of students preparing for the new school year.''

''Ah yes, studying is important of course, but too much isn't very healthy,'' Dumbledore replied without missing a beat, ''Time to relax is also very important. You told me you played Quidditch, so why don't you take time off from your studying and play a little game outside? Both James and young Ms Potter also play the game I am sure they would love to join you,''

'Not very subtle for you Dumbledore,' Harry thought as he listened to Dumbledore suggest him to spend more time with his counterpart's family. Still his little suggestion gave him a little piece of information that he didn't know yet.

''Rose plays Quidditch? Is she part of her house team then?'' He asked, while not very important in the grand scheme of things, but if she was then she just became a little bit more important. While Quidditch players didn't have any official power they still held some sway within their respective houses (especially if they won)

''Yes, yes she is,'' Dumbledore answered, visibly pleased with his interest, "She has been the Keeper for her team for the last two years,''

Harry nodded, Keepers were often the most loved players after the Seekers. While Seekers usually determined the outcome of the game it was up to the other six players to keep the masses entertained until the little golden ball appeared and the Keeper as the only other position with one player usually got the most attention, as chasers and beaters are usually just referred to as the duo and the trio.

''I will consider your advice,'' Harry replied before turning more serious, ''Anyway I have some things regarding the war I would like to discuss now you are here.''

Dumbledore's visage turned a bit more serious as he straightened up, ''What do you want to know?''

''Well the first thing isn't an actual question, it is something I have been thinking about and I would like to hear your input,'' Dumbledore nodded and Harry continued. ''I told you how the Goblins got involved in the war in my universe. How do you think we can prevent this here if war breaks out?''

Dumbledore gained a thoughtful look, ''I too have been thinking about it after I heard you tell me about it, but I haven't found a good solution yet. Goblins are prideful creatures, the fact that after the last rebellion we basically forced them into one location must have fostered a lot of resentment. Which only grew over the years as more and more legalisations were implemented that gave the Goblins less and less rights outside of their soil.''

''You are saying that the rebellion would have come anyway. We breaking the treaty gave them just a good excuse.''

Dumbledore nodded sadly, ''I have been trying to get better relationships established for years, but there is much hate on both sides so it won't be easy. Still it is too early to give up. I am sure we can come up with some solution.''

Harry nodded, ''If you say so, professor,'' He said, ''Now what can you tell me about who has joined voldemort and who do you suspect has joined his side?''

XxX

_24 august 1997, Potter manor_

Harry was in the so called duelling room of Potter manor. Dumbledore should be proud of himself, he got him out of the library. Of course him practicing the varying curses and hexes he had read about was probably not what the man meant, but who cares about details?

He just deemed the flame-whip spell he had been practicing good enough of using in a duel (meaning he can do it non-verbal and with minimal wand movements) when he heard the door open. Standing there in the door opening was none other than Alexandra Black.

''Ms Black,'' He greeted, ''What can I do for you?''

She was standing looking a bit down, not meeting his eyes – a stark contrast to her normal straight back and head held high posture , ''Can I speak to you for a moment, Potter?''

Harry nodded, ''Sure … talk,''

''I – I wish to apologies.''

Harry blinked in surprise, this girl really hadn't seemed the type to apologies and now she does it twice in a couple of days and her entire demeanour also seemed to be different – could she be an imposter? Gripping his wand a bit tighter – ready to lash out, Harry observed the girl a bit closer and there he saw it she wasn't looking down because of nerves or anything she was trying to control her emotions – the conflict was clear to see in her grey eyes.

''For what?'' Harry questioned, ''If this is about that fire spell, than you have already apologised and I really don't care for another.''

''No not for that,'' She said before continuing, ''I thought about what you said after our last 'duel' and well eh with a bit of help I managed to see that I let my feelings regarding your counterpart influence how I saw you,''

'Ah so that is where Rose went,' Harry thought as his theory regarding the Black girl was confirmed, he then said, ''So I take it you didn't like him too much?''

Alex remained silent, but the look on her face was enough to answer, ''I see,'' He said when it became clear when she wasn't going to say anything, ''Well I can't blame you for that, I have the same problem when I see certain people I knew in my own Universe.''

''Is that why you called Mrs Weasley, Prewett?''

Harry raised an eyebrow, ''How do you know that?''

''I overheard your conversation with the order.'' She admitted, unknowingly mimicking a statement Rose had made several days ago, although unlike with the other girl no guilt was heard in this statement.

''Just how many people overheard that? And how did you overhear anyway?''

Alex shrugged, ''The Weasleys were the only ones there besides me and Rose. Your little girlfriend wasn't too pleased when she wasn't allowed to see her 'true love,' ''

Ignoring her last statement, Harry was about to question how exactly they overheard their conversation before a thought struck him, ''They did it didn't they? The twins developed those Extendable Ears?''

When she replied positively, Harry couldn't help, but smile. When the war started everyone had become much more serious, even the twins, but they usually still founded the time to work on some side project – the Extendable Ears being one of them, they had never managed to finish it before they died so it was nice a version of them managed to do it.

Alex meanwhile was slightly shocked at seeing Harry smiling, this was the first real smile she had seen from him. It looked quite different from the usual arrogant smirk that the Potter she knew usually wore or the fake ones this one usually showed. Even though she would never voice it out loud she had to admit this one looked a lot better than the others. She shook that thought from her mind as she had more important things to do.

''Do you think we can win against you-know-who?'' She asked.

Harry's smile disappeared as a slightly forlorn look appeared on his face, ''Yes it is possible, but most likely at a very high price,''

Harry was pleased that Alex seemed to understand what he was implying without him having to spell it out. ''Will they target, Rose?'' She asked after several moments.

Harry wasn't sure why she asked specifically about her, but decided to answer anyway, ''The moment, my counterpart stopped voldemort, she and her parents most likely landed themselves high places on the kill list of that man. His pride will probably accept nothing less than the complete extermination of the Potter line.''

''Will she stand a chance if Death Eaters come after her?''

Harry shrugged, ''Unless she is much stronger than you, than no. Most Death Eaters aren't that skilled, but are still fully trained and usually operate in groups.''

''Yet you stood up against them?''

''I was never alone and I am much stronger than you.''

Alex bristled, ''Then how are you so strong?''

Harry gave her another clearly fake smile, ''You said you heard my story, so I don't have to repeat how I got in the militia.'' He said before adding, ''While fighting in the militia you gained experience and got stronger or you died.''

The blunt statement he delivered it took the girl aback for a bit, but she recovered quickly, ''You are saying you are strong because you have experience?''

''I am not **strong **because I have experience. The experience allowed me to duel better, survive, learn and grow stronger. '' He said before mentally adding, 'That and a couple of other things,'

The girl nodded in understanding, ''So if I practice duelling I can grow stronger to?''

''It will definitely help, especially if your opponent is a superior duellist. Of course you also have to broaden your spell repertoire.''

Alex was silent for a moment as she thought, 'Practice huh? Who was better than her in DADA that would be willing to duel with her on a regular basis? Her father would probably say that he had no time again, her mother while she cared greatly for her would probably say something along of the lines that duelling isn't proper lady behaviour ( a bit hypocritical considering she had been a Auror before she had given birth to her.)

Then her thoughts moved toward the boy standing in front of her … 'No! absolutely not,' She was not going to ask Potter of all people to help … then again this is not 'the Potter,' this was 'the other Potter' and she did promise Rose to try and get along with the guy, but to actually ask for help?

She swallowed deeply, she wasn't naïve, she had heard enough about the first war to know what would happen if she was too weak to defend herself. She had also heard about what had happened to Potter, she shuddered at the thought of something similar to the so called massacre of Hogwarts happening here.

So could she swallow her pride and ask Potter (even if it is a different one) of all people to help her. The only answer she could come up with was yes, after all there is no point in keeping your pride if you were dead. Besides this Potter didn't seem all that bad. At least he wasn't an arrogant berk that demanded that all attention is on him, including his godfather's and hated all dark creatures including her godfather. Then a positive thought came to mind, this most likely gave her the perfect opportunity to curse some form of Potter without getting in problems.

''I have a request,'' She finally said. ''I wish for you to teach me how to duel.''

'Wow that must have hurt her,' Harry thought with slight amusement, still this could definitely work to his advantage, ''Why?''

''I want to be strong enough to protect myself and those I care about.''

''Hmm,'' He hummed, ''I will think about it. For now through let me at least give you one lesson for free,'' Moving quicker than the girl could follow he pointing his wand at her and shot a silent silencing spell at her.

A look of outrage appeared on the girl's face as the spell impacted and she pulled her wand from her pocket at the same time she seemed to scream something at Harry, but no sound came out.

Harry smiled a bit condescendingly at her, ''don't worry it was just a silencing spell.'' He said, her look of outrage didn't disappear, but at least she didn't try to speak again. ''Words have power, but in a duel the element of surprise is more important, therefore one of the most important skills a duellist can have is the ability to do his spell-work non-verbal.''

A bit of her outrage disappeared of her face as Harry continued her mini-lecture, ''Non-verbal spell work will require considerable more concentration and are usually a bit weaker than when done verbally, but in the end the benefits outweigh the downsides.''

''Now then,'' he said as he turned around, ''This concludes the theoretical part of non-verbal magic 101. Have fun with the practical part!'' He said brightly as he started to leave, ''Don't worry if you can't remove it by yourselves, the spell wasn't that strong, it will dissolve itself in three to four hours.''

Harry walked away with a small smile, if she truly was motivated to learn she would come back again even after that. And if she didn't come, then he had been wrong about her and teaching her would just be a waste of time.

Alex stared at the retreating from of one Harry Potter, a scowl on her face, she had been wrong this Potter was just as bad as the other one!

Okay maybe not as bad, this at least was educational, well at least she hoped it was, if this was some cruel prank she would curse him from here to oblivion!

Taking a deep calming breath, she pointed her wand at herself and thought, 'Finite,'

XxX

_28 august 1997, Fudge manor_

A couple of days after Harry gave his first 'lesson' to Alex, two people were sitting in an impressive looking office. One of them was the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, while the other one was his undersecretary, a woman named Dolores Umbridge. They were currently discussing a topic that had been a popular topic in a lot of wizarding homes after a certain Daily Prophet article came out.

''Don't you think it is just another lie from Dumbledore?'' The woman asked.

The man shook his head, ''No, no I don't thinks so. Dumbledore said the boy would be attending Hogwarts, he wouldn't say something like that if he couldn't at least prove it. Regardless how farfetched it sounds, Dumbledore isn't stupid enough to lie about something like that.''

''If you say so, Cornelius.'' The woman replied, ''What should I do about the boy?''

Fudge was silent for a moment then he voiced his thought, ''If he proves to be truly Harry Potter then we should try to get him on our side, not only is the heir of the Potter family, but he also the boy-who-lived, if he support us and not Dumbledore then that would help greatly. ''

The toad-like woman nodded, ''That is true, I may even have some ideas how to accomplish this,''

Meanwhile another woman was leaning against the door of the office, a smirk graced her face and she muttered, ''interesting,'' before she pushed herself away from the door and started walking away. Plans needed to be adjusted and she needed to have a little talk with her daughter before she left to Hogwarts.

XxX

_31 august 1997, Potter manor_

Today was 31 august, the day before he would leave for Hogwarts. The thought itself was pretty weird as he hadn't been to the place since the final battle.

It would probably also be strange to see a lot lookalikes of people who had died – some who he had fought alongside and some who he had killed himself.

At some level Harry was glad that the Hermione of this universe didn't attend Hogwarts anymore – The Hermione he knew had died shortly after Su had died and her death truly cemented his 'it is either them or us' mentally. He wasn't sure how he would have interacted with someone who looked like someone who he had been so close to and yet didn't know him at all.

Then there was the last member of the so called 'golden trio', the boy who gave his life in defence of someone younger. Going by the photos his counterpart held this Ron and his counterpart had been friends, but Harry doubted he would be able to connect to Ron.

If this Ron and his were somewhat the same then it was highly doubtful they would connect in any form. Ron was a decent friend at school, but he had always been somewhat immature. Looking back at some level Harry was glad that Ron had died when he did. He honestly doubted he would have been able to function in the militia. His rather black and white version of 'good' and 'evil' would have probably resulted in him doing something stupid. No it was better than he died his hero's death rather than do something stupid like trying to turn the entire militia against all its Slytherin members.

Of course there were others … many others which had Harry met over the years and his opinion about them would most likely be clouded. He would try not to, but it would be hard.

Things on a more personal front were moving along slowly. He had left the diary alone for now, he would start looking in to when he received the notes on it, tomorrow.

His elf, Toby had also been busy, on his orders he had been going around trying to find varying healing potions for the cheapest price as possible. Knowing himself he knew that he would need that sooner or later.

His caretakers had also taken him on another shopping trip to get his school supplies. He had been once again under heavy Glamours. To his disappointment they didn't give him a vault of his own, but at least they paid for everything (even for the extra books he bought).

Unfortunate his subtle inquiries into the whereabouts of this universe Maurador map, were unanswered. They either didn't get his subtle question or they just didn't want to tell him. Going from what he had observed so far it was most likely the former.

He had also taken some time every day to get a bit closer to the new Hufflepuff prefect. His initial reason for that might have been so that he got closer to someone with a position of power, but as he spend time with her he couldn't help but enjoy those little moments together. Perhaps it was because she didn't exist in his universe and he didn't have an opinion about her already, but it was somewhat relaxing to talk to her. A additional benefit was that she mentioned her late brother on occasion which gave Harry some more insight on his personality and by extension how people could possibly see him. There was also the fact she reminded him a bit of himself of when he still lived with the Dursleys.

Then there was of course the mater of the Black heiress. It had surprised Harry how quickly he had seen her after he had left her silenced in the duelling room.

_XxX_

_It had only been two hours since he had left the duelling room. He had decided to just go back to his bedroom and read a little bit more. He was just reading something about a blood boiling curse when he heard something outside of the door … moments later said door was blown straight from its hinges and one very irritate looking Alexandra Black strode in, wand in her hand and a look that could kill on her face._

''_Hello Ms Black,'' Harry greeted after he had managed to catch the door with his wand before it could impact anything. ''I would invite you in, but it seems you managed to do that yourself.''_

_She didn't say anything for a moment and then she pointed her wand at Harry. Now normally Harry would be more concerned if someone pointed their wand at him, but he had his own wand in his hand and he was curious what she was doing, especially when she closed her eyes moments after pointing her wand at him._

_After ten or so seconds, a red light suddenly erupted from her wand and headed straight towards Harry. _

_Harry moved his body slightly so the stunner missed him and gave the girl her well-deserved compl__i__ment … well sort of at least. ''A non-verbal stunner, impressive …. now if you only didn't close your eyes and took a half an hour to fire the spell you may even win a duel.''_

_The look Harry received made it clear that the girl in front of him was less than pleased with his reply, but before she could retort Harry said, ''No seriously, Ms Black, well done, you will need a lot of pra__c__tice for your non-verbal spells to be useable in a duel, but you made a good progress by being able to use it all.''_

_Alex was silent for a moment until her face morphed from a look of anger to one with a slight smile as she said, ''It's Alex, not Ms Black or if you must be some formal prick Alexandra.''_

_Harry nodded and extended his hand, ''Alex it is then, you may call me Harry.'' _

_Alex accepted his hand and shook it briefly before she smirked and muttered. ''This doesn't change the fact that I will still kick your ass someday.''_

* * *

**Author notes:**

Next chapter …. Hogwarts! (finally)

**Next chapter: chapter 7: The train ride**


	7. The train ride

**Chapter seven: The train ride **

_1 September 1997, Potter manor_

Harry, Rose, James and Lily Potter were gathered in the entrance hall of Potter manor. Harry himself was sitting on his new trunk alongside Rose who was sitting in a similar position, both were already wearing their school robes, which felt a bit weird for Harry as he hadn't worn a robe in months. Currently they were both watching the two oldest Potters in the room as they were arguing about how to get to the station.

Harry glanced at his new watch and saw that they only had twenty minutes left until the train would leave. He sighted, the whole argument in front of him was so utterly pointless that it was almost painful to watch.

Seriously, it had started with how to get there, then they went on how to disguise him, then they started discussing how to handle the press, then they started discussing which family to introduce Harry to first and currently they had moved back on how to actually get there.

He glanced to the side and saw that Rose had an expression on her face that made Harry think this was not the first time she had seen this.

''This is pointless,'' Harry muttered as he stood up from his trunk.

''Are you coming?'' He asked to Rose.

Said girl blinked in surprise as her eyes turned back to focus and turned to Harry, ''You are going on your own?''

Harry nodded, ''I thought it would be rude to leave on my own, but this is already going on for over half an hour, so yeah I am going. And you, will you wait for your parents.''

Rose shook her head and pushed herself of her trunk, "I don't want to miss the train again.''

Harry nodded and casted a feather-light charm on both the trunks before picking his own up. ''Let's go then.''

James and Lily were apparently so absorbed in their argument (currently discussing which journalist to talk first) that they didn't even notice their two 'children,' leave.

XxX

Harry and Rose were standing just out of the wards of Potter manor and Rose asked, ''So how are we getting there? Knight Bus?''

Harry shook his head, if possible he would never set foot in that contraption again. Off all the insane ways witches and wizards travel that one is definitely one of the worst. ''I assume you can't Apparate?''

Rose shook her head, ''No from what I heard they won't start teaching it until my sixth year.''

''Really?'' Harry asked with a hint of surprise. ''I was taught in my fifth,'' He said before thinking, 'Maybe it was because the war,' the ability to teleport away had definitely saved his life on more than one occasion after all.

''Anyway, if you can't Apparate yourself then I will Apparate both of us and our trunk. You do have experience with side-along apparition, right?''

The look on her face gave Harry the answers to his question and just what she thought about that practical branch of traveling.

After gripping her shoulder with his free hand, he said. ''Don't worry Apparating on your own doesn't feel as bad as when getting taken along the ride.

He didn't give her time to reply to his comment, after taking a moment to make sure she was gripping her trunk, envision his destination and with a crack they were gone.

Moments later they reappeared just where he had envisioned it, the corridors of the Hogwarts express, completely bypassing the mass of people assembled outside wanting to catch a glimpse of the Boy-Who-lived.

Letting go of her shoulder, Harry gave the girl next to him a moment to straighten herself before asking, ''Are you okay?''

''Yeah … fine, just give me a little bit of warning next time, okay?'' She asked before really taking in her surroundings. ''You Apparated us straight into the train?''

Harry shrugged, ''As long as the train isn't moving it's rather easy.''

''I wish we would learn it this year,'' Rose said somewhat wistfully.

''Maybe you can get someone to teach you.'' Harry replied, ''I would offer, but my skills in medical magic are rather limited and believe me you can get some rather gruesome injuries when you fail your apparition and splinch yourself.''

Rose nodded, she had heard tales of people who had splinched themselves and the consequences were always nasty to hear. There was a after all a very good reason why the art was taught under strict supervision.

''Will you sit with me and Alex? We were curious about something and wanted to ask you something about the war you fought in.''

Harry blinked, he hadn't expected to get asked that. In all honestly his plan for the train ride had been simple; find an empty compartment and place the strongest locking charm he know on the door. If possible he would rather address the entire hall at once during the sorting ceremony instead of people stopping by his compartment to gawk at him.

''Eh … actually I was going to find an empty compartment and put the strongest locking charm on it I know. Is what you talk about important?''

Rose who by now had some understanding on Harry's mind worked, managed to read between the lines of what he was saying and replied, ''You know you won't be the only one they will be searching for, right?''

Harry nodded, he did know that. If the sheep couldn't find him then they would probably search for the people who they think would know where he was; meaning his counterpart's sister or his friends.

''I know, but unlike you I am not a prefect, as such there is no need for me to available to the other students.''

''As prefect we only have to patrol once and the new Headboy didn't want to hold a meeting so he send a letter to all the Prefects with the patrol schedule.''

'Wow that is new,' Harry thought as he wondered who this seemingly lazy Headboy could be.

Harry shrugged, ''I don't mind then,'' He said as he gestured for her to lead the way. He decided that he would answer any question as long it couldn't be used again it him. There was a chance that those people were going to fight in the upcoming conflict and if they did than it was better they knew as much as possible, as that might prevent them from making dumb mistakes and that would keep them alive longer and alive and able fighters equalled in him having to fight less.

As Harry and Rose were walking through the corridor Harry saw that people were staring out of their compartments and some of them stood up and walked to their compartment doors, but before they could reach the door Harry had used his minor skill in wandless magic to lock the doors. As it was done both wandless and wordless it was in Harry's opinion pathetically weak, but as it took a couple of moments for people to realise the doors were locked and another couple of moments to draw their wands and unlock it, he and Rose had more than enough time to walk away and reached the compartment were Rose had agreed on with Alex to meet.

Said girl was already sitting in her compartment and Rose greeted her enthusiastically. As the two girls were greeting each other, Harry drew the blinds down and drew his wand before casting a locking charm that would stop anyone short of the really determined seventh years or the few adults in the train. After that he sheathed his wand back in its holster and put his trunk away before sitting down on the bench opposite of the two girls.

When he sat down he noticed to his surprise that Alex was already wearing her Hogwarts robe, well that wasn't so suppressing, what was surprising however that it bore the Ravenclaw crest and she wore a prefect badge.

'Huh and here I thought those two were dorm mates,' He thought before mentally adding, 'On the plus side it seems I am now acquainted with two prefects.'

'' Alex,'' He greeted with a nod, ''How's training? Did you finish the books?''

She gave him a foul look he chose to ignore, hey she asked for training not the other way around, so she really had no place to complain … okay maybe just maybe his 'she-needs-to-learn-to-doge-so-take-away-her-wand- and-start-firing-stinging-hexes-at-her' training routine was a bit overboard, but it was for a good cause (and just maybe a little bit revenge for blasting his door in). Then there was of course his little 'homework' he had given her; as professor Bell had taught him it was important to be able to recognise incoming spell fire, so he had given her a list of books to read he knew were in the Potter library (and most likely in the Black one) so she could read up on the more common used curses out there. He also told her to daily do exercises to improve her stamina. While from what he had observed she wasn't out of shape, but she probably would have some trouble with a lengthy duel, especially if she had to dodge a lot.

''Yes, I have read the books,'' She answered eventually, ''I found a lot of inspirational things in some of them.'' She said with what must pass of as an evil smile, but Harry had seen Voldemort smile (that had been rather disturbing) and after that every other attempt at just seemed comical.

Harry nodded, ''Good for you,'' He said casually. ''Now what did you two want to talk about?''

''Well you know we heard you talk with the order right?'' Rose asked and Harry nodded. ''At one point you said you were glad the Muggles didn't get involved in the conflict because you thought they would wipe out all of wizardkind.''

Again Harry nodded and wondered where this was going. ''Well, Alex and I were wondering why you think that. Is it because their numbers or their technology? Because if it is the later then why didn't you people just use Muggle weaponry?''

''It is a little bit of both, not only are we vastly outnumbered by Muggles there is also the matter of their technical advantage. If there is one thing the Muggles truly kept improving over the years is the way of killing people. The magical world has a couple of widespread attacks, but we are mostly stuck with short to mid-range spells that usually can only be used against a couple of people at the same time tops. Muggles on the other hand have developed truly devastating weaponry, far more powerful than anything we have.''

''If that is so, then why didn't you people use it,'' Alex questioned.

Harry shrugged, ''The magical wold is bigger than the UK. Our secrecy was the first and foremost priority and there was a pretty big risk someone would notice if suddenly large amounts of weapons disappeared. Then there was the fact that according ICW law no witch or wizard is allowed to carry a Muggle weapon made weapon.''

''Why not?'' Rose questioned.

''I am not sure if you know, but the countries that are part of the ICW are not truly allies. The formation of the ICW was first and foremost a form of self-preservation as they were the ones who made sure all countries abided by the statute of secrecy. Another law they passed was the one were magicals weren't allowed to carry Muggle weapons, this was most likely to ensure peace as war between wizards would draw to much attention.''

''But, why would magicals carrying muggle weapons lead to war?''

Harry sighted, ''Think … why do people keep inventing new ways to kill other people? The traditional answer would be that they could defend them against other countries. Of course other countries will see it the same way and develop counter measures against the countries who developed the new way while at the same time trying to find their own edge. This is a never ending cycle were no country will allow themselves to be weaker than the ones they feel threatened by. An example of that is the cold war that followed world war two, billions were spend developing weapons that could destroy the world several times over.''

After taking a moment to gather his thoughts, Harry continued, ''The wizarding world on the other hand stagnated in his development and thanks to the Grindwald war and the Voldemort war each country of the ICW kept mostly the same level of fighting force so there were no real developments that would worry other countries into actions, but on the other hand if we were to arm ourselves with Muggle weapons … ''

''A arms race in the wizarding world might happen with all the other magical countries arming themselves to.'' Rose finished.

''Correct,'' Harry said with a nod, ''We might have won the war sooner if we had used it, but it could have escalated into a far wore situation. Of course there is also the pride of the Purebloods to consider. Britain is far from the only country who have those pureblood supremacists maniacs running around. Right now they arrogantly believe that they are on the top of the food scale, but how do you think they will react when they find out how effective Muggle weaponry is against magic?''

''Something stupid no doubt,'' Alex muttered and Harry nodded at her words. Harry wasn't exactly sure what they would have done. They could of course have done something extremely foolish like declare war on the Muggle worlds as a whole to prove their superiority or they could do something even more dangerous and stay hidden while learning how to use Muggle technology effectively. Harry shuddered at the thought of Pureblood supremacist getting their hands on truly dangerous bombs. As he had implied in his meeting with the order, wizards and witches could be pretty good infiltrators especially when they are up against people who never ever even heard of wards.

The compartment felt silent for the next couple of moments as the people in it were still thinking about the rather serious topic they had just discussed. The silence was broken however when Rose spoke up again, asking a question that Harry hadn't expected her to ask.

''Hey Harry?'' She asked and harry hummed that she had his attention, ''I have been wondering that eye of yours is it the same as Professor Moody? One that allows you to see trough things?''

To be honest Harry had expect that question to be asked at some point by someone like Alex who is allot more blunt in her way of talking than the usual reserved Rose.

Harry pondered for a moment if he should answer truthful. Keeping the fact that his eye could see trough things secret was without a doubt a tactical advantage, but on the other hand his eye was a pretty standard model and it would be easy for someone to find out what it truly does. So lying would do more harm than good.

''Well I doubt anyone truly knows what functions 'mad eye's' fake eye truly has, besides the obvious ones of course, but as for your other question, yes I can see trough things with it, but I don't use it to often.''

''Why not?'' Alex asked, seeing trough things would be pretty awesome in her opinion. Of course not awesome enough to want to lose an eye, but still awesome!

''I still have a normal eye that perceives everything … well normal, but if use the function to see trough things then my other eye sees something different and believe me seeing two different things is highly confusing not to mention disorientating. So I have to close my real eye every time I want to use the function for an extended amount of time and I rather not do that for obvious reasons.''

''I see,'' Alex said and she took a look at her watch and immediately cursed under her breath as she turned to Rose, ''We should have started our patrol several minutes ago,'' She said as she stood up and walked up to the door, only to fail badly when she tried to open it. She whipped out her wand from her pocked and Harry mentally nodded in approval when she cast a non-verbal spell at the door.

The spell was apparently not enough as the door didn't unlock. Harry decided to take pity on her (and mentally added yet another spell to the list to teach her) and fired his own unlocking spell at the door, which immediately opened.

The moment they left Harry reapplied the locking charm after a moment of thought he decided not to be an ass and add a privacy spell (so that he wouldn't hear them when they came back), no instead he picked up a book from his trunk. The book had been one of the ones he had bought in his recent trip to Diagon and was a guide on how to control the magic in one's body better.

Harry already had some basic understanding of the subject. From what he had learned wizards and witches have magic in them. Said magic constantly tries to maintain a magical body's in a healthy shape as possible. It was one of the reason why it was so much harder for a magical to get fat or why they naturally died at later ages as non-magical beings.

Harry had never really studied wand lore, but from what he understood a wand that was compatible with a witch or wizard allowed a magic-user to easily drawn out that magic. He wasn't sure how exactly that worked. Sure you picked out your own personal wand when you were eleven, but supposedly wands won in a duel should also work perfectly. He himself had only wielded two other wands other than his holy one. Both worked fine for him, but considering one was the brother of the one he bought when he was eleven and the other was a legendary wand that had changed alliances so often over the years that wasn't so surprising he could wield it.

Of course, you can also use magic without a wand. If children can do it then why shouldn't fully trained witches and wizards be able to do it? As he found out it wasn't that easy. What children did was purely intent-based magic and that was incredibly hard to control. To truly do wandless magic, one had to do what a wand did without actually using the wand.

While words, especially words in the older languages had power it was the wand that guided once magic into forming the proper effect. To perform proper wandless magic you had to mimic what wand movements did to your magic on your own, which was unfortunately an incredible difficult feat, especially in the middle of battle.

If course you didn't have to go all the way, so to speak. So could you for example forgo part of the wand movements if you controlled your magic to such a degree that it didn't need those added movements, which of course was incredibly useful in a duel as it increased his casting speed immensely.

He himself had developed enough that he could do some very basic, but rather weak things without a wand and he hoped this book would help develop those fledgling skills.

His ultimate goal was something he had seen Voldemort do once. He may despise the man, but there is no denying the fact that when he saw him fly without the aid of a broom he had to admit to himself that was the most awesome thing he had ever seen. Harry had suspecting Voldemort was able to do this by controlling his magic to such degree that he could fly. Since he had seen it he hadn't made much if any progress in learning to fly, but he hoped now that he had access to proper books he would book some progress.

XxX

Currently Harry was halfway through chapter 5 of his new book and he had already picked up some useful pointers then suddenly someone started to pound on the compartment door. This hadn't been anything for him as over course of the ride the exact same thing happened quite a number of times, but so far no one had been able to open the door, but this time were different as he heard a voice that was already becoming rather familiar shout, ''Potter! Open that damn door right now or I will blast it open!''

Not bothering to look up from his book he fired the unlocking spell at the general direction of the door. The moment the door opened two witches stormed into the compartment and quickly closed the door. Harry looked up at their way of coming in and just saw several people standing behind the door before it was closed.

''Colloportus!'' Alex snarled after she had drawn her wand and aimed it at the door.

''You girls okay?'' Harry asked as he took a moment to observe the red faced and slightly out of breath girls.

Alex glared at Harry and even Rose seemed to show her displeasure at his rather dumb question by frowning at him.

''Dumb question?'' He asked, while at the same time firing his own locking charm at the door.

''We would have just thrown you of the compartment when we left. At least your adoring fans wouldn't have bothered us then.''

Harry shrugged, ''Would you have been able to do it?'' He asked somewhat rhetorically before returning to his book. While he was still reading he asked, ''Why didn't you just use the notice-me-not charm if people were bothering you.''

''According to professor Flitwick we won't learn that spell until halfway through this year.'' Rose answered.

''Ah,'' Harry nodded. He honestly couldn't bother to remember exactly when he had learned what. Still he had been pretty sure he had learned it before then. Then again the notice-me-not charm was arguably one of the spells he had wanted to know about earlier the most. How great would it have been to know the spell when he had been chosen as the second Hogwarts tri-wizard champion or when people accused him of being the heir of Slytherin? Heck what about during his first year when people couldn't stop a gawk at him like he was some kind of bloody animal.

Still he had no desire to sit with two irritated witches for the next couple of hours. So he marked his page and put the book away.

''The incantation of the charm is Caeca,'' He said grabbing both witches attention. The charm has no real wand movements other than tapping what you want to cast the spell on. The spell has several limitation. The first and foremost is that it only works efficiently when you aren't seen by who you want to hide from when you cast it. Another one is that one with a strong enough will can see through the charm, the same goes for people who can sense magic. It is also possible for people who can see through it to point you out to people who can't, thereby breaking the charm. Also if you put attention to yourself then the charm will break to, but regardless of all those flaws it is a very useful spell to learn, especially when you combine it with other spells that hide you.''

Both girls stared at Harry for a moment clearly not expecting this mini-lecture, but then Rose spoke up, ''And you think we can learn this spell?''

Harry shrugged, ''Sure, it honestly isn't that difficult, although it's highly recommended that you learn to do it non-verbally as the most important part of the spell is not to attract attention to yourself the moment you cast it.''

''Uh thanks, Harry.'' She said after a moment pause and Harry gave her a nod in acknowledgement and went back to his book. Then suddenly someone pounded on the door again and Harry sighted; couldn't they let him read his book in peace?

He flicked his wand in direction of the door and cast a spell and suddenly all the sound from outside of the compartment was muffled, satisfied Harry went back to his book.

Alex and Rose looked at each other for a moment and then nearly simultaneously shrugged, both had a look that clearly stated just-go-with-it, then by some non-spoken agreement they both pulled out their wands and started trying to get the notice-me-not charm to work.

If anyone in the rather peaceful compartment had bothered to open the door then they would have seen the image of a shouting Ron proclaiming his need to rescue his best friend from the evil Black and one Ginny Weasley who proclaimed the desire to see her one true love again.

* * *

**Author notes: **

And that was chapter seven – next chapter: Hogwarts meet the new Harry and more importantly his sorting! And with this chapter we also have breached the 40K mark (albeit barely). I can't believe it took me that long to get him to Hogwarts. Then again this story is bigger than Hogwarts. Nothing else to say so see you all next chapter: **chapter eight: the Sorting.**

**Edit: **Do you people think Harry should learn how to fly? Regardless how awesome (in my opinion) the skill would be, in all honestly it doesn't add much to the story and Harry is trying to stay low key for now so being the first person to fly without a broom will not be beneficial.


	8. The Sorting

**Chapter eight: The Sorting**

Harry was standing next to the half-giant who's counterpart had been the one to introduce him to the wizarding world. Surrounding the two was a large number of children who were either staring at Harry in confusion or were looking at him in awe.

Getting of the train had been easy for Harry as unlike Hogwarts, Hogsmede wasn't under anti- apparition wards, he could just apparate out of the train when the platform had cleared a bit.

Unfortunately that plan didn't seem to work at first as the students seemed to stay at the platform instead of moving on to the carriages. Harry figured they wanted to see him or something and was about to cast concealing spells on himself when he saw several prefect actually do their work and order the assembled crowd to move on.

After waiting for a couple of moments more, Harry saw that the crowd was as good as gone so he turned to the two girls who apparently didn't feel like a repeat of what happened during their patrol as they had remained seated.

''Well, I see you two at the castle,'' He said before unlocking the door and immediately apparating away. If he had stayed a moment longer he would have been confronted by a large number of students who took the unlocking of the door as a sign to barge in, much to the ire of the two remaining people in the compartment. Even though one showed it a lot more vocally then the other. ''GET THE FUCK OUT OF OUR COMPARTMENT!''

Harry thought he heard someone shout, but paid it no mind as he silently appeared besides the first years, nearly scarring the crap out of most of them.

''Hello,'' He greeted with a slight wave, ''Professor McGonagall told me I had to report to you.''

Hagrid blinked in surprise at the sudden arrival of the young man. Sure he had been told that the Harry Potter would attend Hogwarts again and that this was some kind of different Harry, but he really didn't look like the Harry he had imagined.

Sure he had already been told about the fake eye and the growth in length was understandable considering the time he hadn't seen Harry, but what had happened to the boy's hair? And where were his glasses? He also may not be the most observant of persons, but there was also something completely different about his stance. He seemed weary? And looked as if he expected to be attacked at any time? But that couldn't be right – this was Hogwarts, there is no reason to feel like that.

Still regardless of how he looked Dumbledore had ordered him to make Harry feel welcome and that was what he was going to do.

''Harry! How good to see you.''

Harry nodded, ''Good to see you too Hagrid,'' He said while thanking Merlin that Hagrid didn't try to hug him. He may have gotten stronger magically, but he was still human and he could still remember the time Hagrid had accidentally broken several of his ribs when he hugged him a tad to enthusiastically and from the looks of things this Hagrid was pretty much the same as the person he knew.

Of course the moment his name was said, quite a number of the eleven year olds made the connection and started to stare at him even more intensely then when he arrived via apparition.

Luckily for Harry's patience it seems everyone was there as Hagrid bellowed, ''Alright, everyone here? Then fellow me!''

Harry followed the man down a steep and narrow path, luckily it hadn't rained recently so it was a lot easier to walk. After walking for several minutes in silence the group arrived at the edge of large lake and at the opposite of the lake was a Castle he had once called home. A castle where some of his best and some of his worst memories had happened. The last time he had laid eyes on it had been during the final battle of Hogwarts and back then large portions of the castle had been destroyed. To see it again in its full glory like this made something stir inside of Harry.

''No more than four to a boat!'' Hagrid called out as he pointed towards a small fleet of little boats that were sitting in the water by the shore.

Harry quickly walked over toward the closest boat and hopped in before quickly pulling his wand and casting a mild compulsion ward around his boat. It made other want to stay away. After all he could only take the awe-struck staring for so long and it really wouldn't do his reputation any good if he threw a eleven year old in the lake. Besides these boats weren't that big and he wasn't a little elven year old anymore. He deserved his own boat just as much as Hagrid.

Once everyone was seated (with some of them looking confused as they had intended to sit with the boy-who-lived, but then suddenly felt the desire to sit elsewhere), Hagrid spoke up again in his usual loud voice. ''Everyone in? – right then FORWARD!''

As if obeying the command the boats shot forward and started gliding toward the castle. Just like when he saw it in his first year, Harry stared at the castle as the boats were driving forward, but his thought were completely different then when he saw it back then.

Back then his thought had been on the wonders of magic and how he was finally away from his relatives, but now his thoughts were on the magic he felt emitting from the castle. It wasn't the wards he was sensing, no it was magic in the purest form, it was the mark left behind by the magic of the accumulated magic-output of thousands of students that had attended Hogwarts over the years.

Like Muggles can sense Demonters most magical can also sense magic to some degree although very few actually learn to recognise what it actually is what they sense. The last time he had been here the magic had just felt wrong, no doubt Voldemort had corrupted it to beyond repair for his own gain.

While Harry himself want above using the so called dark magic. What he had sensed that had been wrong at a whole other level of dark magic. It was kind of like comparing a petty thief to a rapist both were criminals, but they were definitely on whole different levels.

Harry was brought out of his thought when he heard Hagrid shout, ''Heads down!''

Harry lowered his head slightly while at the same time wondering why his eleven year old self had done the same things. He had been way too short to be in danger of hitting his head. Heck looking back he doubted any first had needed to duck.

Moments later they arrived in the underground harbour and Harry stepped out. Once everyone had gather around again and Hagrid had counted the heads, he told them to follow them before leading them to a large oak front door. He then knocked three times on the castle door.

The moment Hagrid knocked the doors flung open and to Harry's surprise besides professor McGonagall whom he had expected, Lily Potter was also standing there.

''Harry, you're safe!'' She exclaimed happily.

Harry blinked where had that come from? He mentally shrugged, it didn't really matter; just give a response and move on.

''Indeed I am Mrs Pot – excuse me I mean Indeed I am professor Potter.'' Harry replied, correcting himself when he remembered that the woman taught Muggle studies at Hogwarts.

There was a somewhat awkward silence after Harry's rather formal reply that wasn't broken until McGonagall coughed and Hagrid took that as his cue to officially hand over the first years.

''The first years, Professor McGonagall,'' He said as he gestured toward the group of first years. He then nodded towards Lily, ''Professor Potter,'' He said in greeting.

''Thank you Hagrid, I will take them from here,'' The deputy headmistress said and Harry wondered of this little 'conversation' was part of the tradition as they had said the exact same thing when he was eleven.

''Please follow me,'' She said as she turned around and start walking away , Lily looked conflicted for a moment, but then walked away toward the direction of the great hall.

The group of first years meanwhile followed McGonagall as she lead them toward the same room Harry had gotten his first introduction speech.

''Welcome to Hogwarts,'' She began as soon as everyone was gathered in the room. ''The start of term feast will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your house will be something like your family within Hogwarts.''

Harry mentally snorted at hearing this, yeah you were family as long as you were an asset to the house, but if you lose some points you immediately become a pariah within the lions house, then there was the bullying with the ravens and the backstabbing and power plays within the snake's den. Heck the only house that remotely resembled a family were the Puffs, but they took that often a bit to far as he had seen in his fourth year.

''You will have classes with the rest of your house, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend free time in your house common room. The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honour. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours. The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting.''

Her eyes went over the assembled mass and showed displeasure several times, but then decided to leave, but not without leaving the parting words. ''I shall return when we are ready for you, please wait quietly.'' With than she left.

The moment she left a lot of the first years turned toward Harry and he mentally cursed, apparently he couldn't avoid them forever, but the most unlikely of 'allies' appeared on the scene.

Harry heard someone scream and thought that it was the ghost again, but he was quickly proven wrong when instead of seeing the typical white associated with ghost, he saw a brightly coloured entity fly into the room, cackling madly while gleefully saying, ''Oh what does Peeves see? Tiny firsties! Oh Peeves is going to have so much fun this year!''

Harry smiled at seeing the Poltergeist. He may have been a royal pain during his Hogwarts career, but there was no denying he saved a lot of lives during the second battle of Hogwarts.

As a Poltergeist he was free to go tangible and intangible at will. Making him rather formidable in his own right. So when he was told to cause chaos and mayhem in the enemies ranks to cover their retreat he did it gleefully. It was a shame he had been bound to Hogwarts otherwise he definitely would have been a great asset in the war. It was also to great sadness that people discovered that Voldemort had found some way to permanently get rid of Peeves as he couldn't be found after the final battle.

Then suddenly the Poltergeist seemed to have noticed Harry as he abruptly stopped flying around the room in circles. Instead he lowered down until he was floating at eye-height with Harry.

''Hello Peeves,'' Harry greeted, trying to remain polite. He may be the master of death, but Peeves isn't a ghost so he can't order him around. Still if push comes to shove he could order the bloody baron, the one thing Peeves feared to make Peeves stop pestering him, but he rather not do that as Peeves could be an interesting ally.

Peeves tilted his head slightly to the right and then after a moment observing him like that he turned his head to the left and continued staring. Most people who know Peeves would have freaked by know, but Harry just stared blankly back. He had stared down Voldemort after all, there is no way a poltergeist could scare him (much).

Peeves then returned his head straight and pointed to harry with his right index-finger, ''You are the one they had been talking about! The master!'' He said gleefully.

The only sign of surprise Harry allowed to show was the slight upward movement of his eyebrow as he wondered if Peeves truly was talking about what he thought he was talking about.

But before anything else could be said McGonagall entered again and after she took a moment to take in the strange scene of Harry and Peeves staring each other down while all the first years were watching she barked, ''Peeves, leave!''

Peeves slowly turned toward the deputy and to Harry's surprise he actually obeyed after several moments as he started floating away, but just before he was about to phase through a wall he turned back toward Harry and gave him a maniacal grin before giving him a mock bow, ''It was a honour oh great one, peeves has a lot of friends he would like to introduce to the great one.''

Having said that he turned back around and flew through the wall, his cackling laugh could still clearly be heard by the people in the room.

It was clear just how used McGonagall was to Peeves as it took only a moment to gather her wit and she announced, ''The Sorting Ceremony is about to start. Now form a line and follow me.'' She said before adding, ''Mr Potter please move to the back you will be sorted last.'' Harry was more than glad to do this, as at least those first years wouldn't be staring at him.

It didn't take them long before they were standing in front of the doable doors leading to the Great Hall. The transfiguration professor opened the door and confidently strode in, followed by a line of eleven years old who were less than confident and a seventeen year old one who was more reluctant to be in the spotlights than anything.

As Harry walked in it became painfully clear that all the attention was on him, but he refused to show any weaknesses and kept his eyes straight ahead and his face neutral.

The group stopped in the middle of the hall, some in confusion while others in anticipation. Luckily for Harry, he didn't remain under the watch of the entire hall as most of the Hall turned to the sorting hat when he started singing.

Harry to stared at the hat, the words of the song didn't really register to him as seeing it made him think about his own history with the hat. In his first year it nearly sorted him in Slytherin. He briefly wondered if he had never met Malfroy would he have also so venomously be against being sorted in Slytherin? Then again it was for the best. He would never have survived with Snape as his head of house. McGonagall hadn't been the most supportive head of house, but Snape would have been much worse.

Then there had been the incident in the chamber of secrets, where Harry had pulled out the sword of Gryffindor out of the sorting hat. A feat supposedly only possible for a true Gryffindor according to Dumbledore. This as it turned out was complete bullshit as Harry had learned later. According to a history buff he met in the militia supposedly each of the founders put protections in place to protect their legacy.

Slytherin had of course the Chamber of Secrets, Gryffindor had put his own personal weapon in the sorting hat and added an enchanted to the hat that it should come to all those trying to defend the school, be they Gryffindor or Slytherin didn't matter as long as it was a true defender of Hogwarts. Heck even a Goblin should be able to pull the sword from the hat.

Ravenclaw's one was a lot vaguer. Supposedly she like Slytherin had created a hidden room within Hogwarts, but hers was truly magical. Supposedly the room could transform in anything the inhabitant wanted. To Harry this sounded a bit farfetched, but then again the Chamber of Secrets was also real and this was magic, impossible didn't really seem to exist in this world. Perhaps finding this room could be a little side-project while he was here? With his power to command ghost it should be possible to find it, if it exist that is.

And there was the object of the last founder, Helga's cup. A legendary cup that is said to increase the potency of any potion. Like Gryffindor's sword this one should also be able to pulled out of the hat, but according to the history buff that has only happened twice in recorded history and unlike the sword no really know the specific requirements for bringing out the cup.

Harry was brought out of his thoughts when a large applause erupted as the hat stopped his song. the deputy headmistress unrolled a long roll of parchment and said, ''When I call your name , you will put on the hat and sit on the stool to be sorted,'' She then briefly consulting her list and called the first name.

''Abernathy, Alice!''

A young brunette strode surpassingly confidently forward and plopped down on the chair and put on the hat. Moments later the hat shouted ''HUFFLEPUFF!''

Harry quickly lost interest after that as he took the moment to take in the head table. Most he recognised easily.

Dumbledore of course was sitting there in his traditional throne like chair. He seemingly had his attention fully on the ones sorted, but to those who took the time to observe they could see that Dumbledore constantly scanned the entire hall. It wasn't obvious, but Dumbledore was very much aware of his surroundings.

Snape was sitting at his side and was glaring at his direction. Harry briefly considered just flipping him off, but decided against it as even though the sorting was going on a large part of the hall had started staring at him again. 'Really had those people ever heard of discretion?'

To the man's side was Lily Potter who didn't the greatest job hiding the fact that she wasn't paying attention to the sorting at all.

Next to her sat the Astronomy professor, Aurora Sinistra. He was glad he didn't have that subject anymore. The teacher was nice enough, but the hours were hell, especially if you had to get up early the next day.

The last on that side of the table was the half-giant and Care teacher Rubeus Hagrid. Like with Astronomy Harry was glad he no longer had to attend Care. Hagrid was a good person, but his sense of what was dangerous and what not was not what most would call normal.

On the other side of Dumbledore, opposite of Snape was an empty chair, most likely meant for the still standing deputy.

In the chair next to her sat a woman who was wearing a garish pink outfit and had more than a passing resemblances to a toad. Harry knowing that the staff already had a half-giant and a professor with Goblin blood in him wondered if the woman was the same and had some creature blood in her.

Regardless how she looked Harry didn't recognise and briefly wondered who this was. Perhaps this was the Umbridge, Rose had mentioned that was her DADA teachers two years ago? Regardless of who she was Harry decided to be wary of her. The way she was looking at him as if calculating his worth highly unnerved him.

Next to her were the heads of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw respectively. There was Sprout, a slightly plump woman who also teaches Herbology and, the charms professor, still small as ever.

Harry had to supress the frown that started to appear on his face as his eyes landed on the Charms professor. Seeing him made one of the worse memories of the war resurface.

His team along with another militia team had been ordered to assist a Auror team in their capture of 'a goblin conspirator'. It wasn't until he stood face to face with the professor he hadn't seen since the second battle of Hogwarts that Harry learned who exactly they had went to apprehend.

Harry hadn't wanted to arrest the man. After being taught by him for over four years, Harry just couldn't see him as an enemy and considering who was the one giving the orders the reliability of the information was also rather questionable.

Whether Flitwich had sided with the Goblins or not Harry would never find out as after only a brief tense standoff the Aurors engaged the former professor with clear lethal intent. The tired and weary looking charms-master hadn't hesitated and returned fire. This quickly escalated as the two militia team got involved after several spells came to close for comfort.

Harry at first had only used stunners and other non-lethal spells as he hadn't wanted to hurt his professor, but when a cutting curse came way to close to one of his teammates something snapped inside of him and before he realised it he had fired the curse that had ended the conflict.

The result of the fight; Four dead and three heavy wounded Aurors, two dead Millitia members and one dead former professor.

It hasn't been the first time Harry had killed in battle, but that was the first time he ended the fight not knowing if had done the right thing or not.

Clearing his mind of those dark thoughts, Harry moved on to the next person. Next to the little man was a man whose name Harry couldn't really remember as he had limited interaction with him. He had been Muggle study professor, a according to Hermione rather incompetent man who didn't even know about the first moon landing, but what was he doing here? If lily Potter taught Muggle studies then what did he do?

The last three chairs were filled with Professor Vector, the Arithmancy professor, professor Babbling, the Ancient Runes professor and lastly professor Hooch, a woman who teaches first years how to fly and is the referee of the Hogwarts Quidditch matches.

Looking at Hooch made him remember Quidditch. It had been a long time since he had played it and he kind of missed it. Maybe he should try out if there is a position free? As long as he didn't stand on any important toes, it really couldn't do any harm to relax from time to time. Besides picking up Quidditch again should be a far better hobby than what Su had tried to teach the team before her death. Then again that had saved his life so he could hardly complain about it.

Finally when the last student to be sorted was sorted, Dumbledore stood up and addressed the hall, ''Ah, yes, yes, welcome everyone. Before we begin the feast we have one last student to sort. I am pleased to welcome Harry Potter to the castle. Please Mr Potter take a seat to be sorted.''

Those few who hadn't already been watching Harry turned to him and dead silence reigned. Harry sighted and strode forward, when he reached the chair with the hat on he didn't sit, no instead he turned around and faced the Great Hall again.

''Students and staff of Hogwarts,'' He began, his voice clearly heard by all the students in the silent hall. ''My name is Harry James Potter. If you have read the Daily Prophet recently then you know who I am. If you haven't. I am someone born in another universe, a world where things went differently than here. For example my parents are dead. They died on Halloween 1981 and I left Magical Britain until I was eleven and went to Hogwarts. So some of you may think you know me due to the fact that you went to school with my counterpart. This cannot be farther be from the truth. My counterpart and I are both born from the same parents other than that we are different persons. So whatever relationship you might have with my counterpart, either friendly or hostile, do not expect me to be the same. Thank you.''

Having said that he picked up the hat and sat down. What he just did was something he learned not to do; giving away information without getting something back may seemed foolish, but if he didn't sort this out now, there was a good chance he would have lived in the shadow of his counterpart. And if he acted out of character from what was expected then things might have turned uglier then when he just informed them now that he might be different than expected.

Of course he kept the reason why or how he came here secret, there was no reason to unnecessary antagonise Voldemort sympathisers and telling someone he was summoned by a rather dubious sounding ritual wasn't the brightest idea either. Especially considering the fact that rituals as a whole are usually considered dark arts here in the UK. Of course he also kept that he grew up as a Muggle vague. He only told them he grew up outside of magical Britain, if they wanted to take that statement as that he grew up in a magical household outside of Britain then he wouldn't mind.

Harry then put on the hat and the moment he did he felt something effortlessly push through his mind shield. Harry frowned and retreated back to his mindscape. What he saw there was not something he had expected.

Like normal when he entered his mindscape he was sitting in an armchair in his bookcase filled room, but unlike normal now there was another identical armchair facing him with the sorting hat on it.

''My, aren't you a bit old to be sorted?'' The hat asked after it seemingly had taken a moment to look around (how he did that without eyes Harry would never know). ''Then again you are the first student I sorted who actually has a mindscape where I can converse in. I must say it is a nice change.''

Harry not sure what to say to that just said the first thing that came up, ''Uh welcome to my mind I guess.''

''Why thank you Mr Potter and I due to apologise for intruding on your mind like this, but I am sure you understand considering my job and all.''

Harry nodded, ''As long as everything you learn remains between us.''

''Of course, Mr Potter,'' The hat said, ''When I was made I was specifically designed so that I can't divulge any secrets from those I sort. Someone with you experiences should know that the public would have never allowed me to exist when I am able to break mind shields so easily and there was nothing to stop me to tell what I learned.''

Harry nodded, eleven years may have nothing to hide, but if the hat could truly easily break through mind shields then it could be one of the best integration objects out there. ''I see,'' He said after a moment, ''So what house should I go to?''

The hat hummed and stated, ''Well like I said you are very old to be sorted. I can see in your memories that you have been sorted in Godric's house when you were eleven, but as most persons you have grown much since then and now you have traits that all four of the founders could appreciate, some a bit stronger than others, but they are all still there.''

The hat was silent for a moment and then elaborated, ''You definitely have become a lot more cunning and calculative over the years, a trait you might have forced upon yourself to protect yourself and others, but a trait none the less. Salazar would have also appreciate your ambitious goals in fighting a war you no longer care about just to end up an in better position.''

''Helga on the other hand would have wanted you in her house for your hard working attitude regarding your education and also your loyalty towards those few who gained your trust. She would probably also wanted you in her house to teach you not to lost hope in humanity.''

''Rowena would appreciate your desire for knowledge. I doubt she would be too happy about what you used that knowledge for, but her desire to see well educated students would probably prevail and she would have loved to get you in her house.''

''Lastly your old house; regardless how much you try to supress certain traits they are still there. Your bravery … your recklessness, you have learned to curb those attitudes, but deep down they are still there, strong as ever. After all not only will your future plans need a lot of planning, but it will also take a certain level of daring.''

''So I have traits that all the founders would appreciate, but the question remains which house should I go?''

''That is a good question Mr Potter, this is actually the reasons why sorting so late is more difficult. Younger students are usually not that mentally devolved and tend to only have traits of one or two houses. Which house do you think you should belong to? Back to your old one?''

Harry shrugged, ''Been there, done that.'' He said in a dismissing tone. That was not even mentioning that as being a Gryffindor is what was expected of him. It wouldn't do to work in the stereotype too much.

''What about Slytherin house then? My counterpart suggested it when you were eleven and now I recommend it again. It seemed you lost you bias to the house, so perhaps you are willing now?''

Harry snorted, ''I may have lost my bias, but that doesn't mean the rest of the school has. My arrival is already rather dubious, no need to make things worse by joining the house with the worst stigma attached to it. Besides I try to stay away from Snape, joining his house is a bit counterproductive.''

The hat hummed again, ''I guess I can see your point and it wouldn't really do if Hogwarts would lose one of his teachers this early.'' He said and Harry was slightly disturbed how a hat who usually talked with eleven years old could talk about death so easily.

The hat laughed and as if he read Harry's mind (which he probably did) ''Don't worry Mr Potter, I can see in the minds of people so I know what they can handle and what not. Now to the matter at hand where to sort you. You already rejected the two houses where you have the strongest affinity with, so either Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff.''

''If I may choose I would like to join the Hufflepuff house.'' Harry said.

'' Hufflepuff huh? May I ask why this specific house?''

''The kitchens are right next to their common room.'' Harry replied in a deadly serious voice.

There was a silence for several moments and then the hat spoke up Incredulously, ''You which to join Hufflepuff because their common room is next to the kitchen?''

Harry snorted, ''Of course not, but you are the one who can read minds,'' He said, ''So I am sure you can figure out my reasoning for yourself.''

The hat was silent for a moment and then suddenly barked out a laugh, ''Salazar would have been proud of you.'' He only said before loudly exclaiming. ''' Hufflepuff!''

This last bit was exclaimed out loud and greatly shocked the waiting students, most had been wondering why Harry needed to be sorted as it was clear he would go to Gryffindor so it came to their shock when the hat announced another house.

The shocked silence was broken when professor Sprout loudly started to applaud, closely followed by her house who were very shocked that someone as famous as Harry Potter had joined their house as it usually was referred to as the house of the leftovers.

Harry pulled the hat off, but not before mentally thanking the hat for placing him where he wanted, he then gave the hat to the stunned looking deputy before making his way to the his new house table and sat down next to Rose.

''Hey,'' He greeted

''Hi,'' She replied that seemed more automatic than anything as her mind didn't seem to be entire there. She was giving him a look that clearly stated she didn't believe he of all people was really her housemate.

For Harry, joining this specific house was a calculated move. He had asked for this house specifically for several reasons. The first and foremost was of course how badly this house was underestimated. It was like joining this house immediately made you stupider in other people's opinion. Of course this would make it harder to recruit, but being underestimated was worth it. Of course there was also the matter of the in-house loyalty. And even though he properly didn't realise it himself a small part of Harry wanted to join this house because of the girl next to him. After seeing James snub the house his daughter was in like that a small part of him really wanted to join that house just to prove a point.

It was at that moment that Dumbledore stood up and the already relatively quiet hall fell completely silent.

''Now before we can all enjoy the wonderful feast our kitchen staff has prepared for us I have a couple of announcements to make. Firstly I would like to welcome professor Dolores Umbridge back who after a year absence has returned to the castle in her position as Defence against the dark arts teacher.''

The inhabitants of the great Hall applauded, but Harry noted it wasn't very enthusiastically. In a rare show of house unity all four houses seem to dislike the woman on similar levels. Harry briefly wondered what the woman had done to unite the student body like this.

That was until the woman opened her month and 'thanked' the students for their warm welcome. It was then that Harry immediately knew why she was disliked so much. It was the patronising tone the woman talked with. She was addressing them like they were a bunch of little kids! If she talked like this all the time then it was no wonder she earned the ire of the teenagers in the castle.

After Umbridge was done with her little speech, Dumbledore took the word again. ''Mr Filch would also like me to remember you that all the items bought from WWW are forbidden. The over six hundred other items that are forbidden can be found back on a list and that can be viewed in Mr Filch's office.''

Upon hearing this several people groaned loudly, while others mainly the youngers did a very bad job at hiding their guilty look.

"Notification of the Quidditch try-outs will be posted in the common rooms. I would also like to remind everyone that the forest on the grounds is out-of-bounds to students, as is the village of Hogsmeade to all below their third year and those without permission who aren't of age yet.''

''Finally I would like to introduce you to this year's head boy and girl. May I present to you your head boy Mr Ronald Weasley and your head girl Ms Blaise Zabini-Fudge.''

When Harry heard this it was very hard for him to hide his surprise. Ron as head-boy? Granted he was not the Ron he knew, but still. Then again the Ron he had knew was also chosen to be prefect for some reason, but if Ron had been shocking then the other one had been even more shocking.

Harry knew Blaise Zabini. How could he not? He had attended classes with the person for over four years. They may not have been even remotely close, but after sharing classes for so long it was impossible not to recognise the name. The only problem was that Blaise was a guy so it was definably shocking when the name was called in connection to head girl. Was this another thing that could be different between universes? If so Harry was really glad his counterpart hadn't been a girl. He just knew things would have been even more awkward if that had happened.

And what was up with that –Fudge part of her name? IF the rumours were to believed Blaise Zabini's mother had remarried quite a number of time, did her mother marry Fudge? Or was it something else? Technically she could be married as she was seventeen, but as far as he could remember there was only one Fudge left in Britain or at least he had been in Harry's own universe. He hadn't found about what the situation was here yet.

Regardless of all that if she was a Slytherin like her male counterpart and Ron was even slightly as biased as his counterpart then the heads would definitely not work well this year.

Meanwhile at the Slytherin table Blaise Zabini stared in front of her, her face a expressionless mask as she tried to ignore the not so subtle whispers of how exactly she got the position. It wasn't as hard as at first, but they were still annoying. The reason why she could was because those whispers had followed her since she had come to Hogwarts. Those comment came mostly due to her mother's rather questionable reputation. It was probably because those comments that she had never dated within Hogwarts, there was really no need to give them more ammunition. This was especially true now that she carried the name –Fudge. She wasn't sure what exactly her mother was planning as she had been longer with that fool then with any other man after her father had died. She doubted she loved the oaf so she must have something planned and bad press was the last things she would need then.

Still this was her last year here, after she had received her NEWTs she could hopefully start to live her own life step out of her mother's shadow.

Of course this year wasn't going to be easy. Not only was she going to sit her NEWTs this year there was also the upcoming war to consider. While she wasn't sure when things would get really bad, only a blind wouldn't see the signs that a conflict will come sooner than later.

Then there was of course the change of the power balance of her year within her house. Now that Daphne had finally chosen a side things would change, especially after Tracey's unexpected death during the summer holiday. Although there was of course the question if Daphne wouldn't change sides again as if what she heard through the grape vine was true… her choice wasn't entirely made out of her free will.

Then there was the mission her mother had given her. She was of two mind whether not to obey or not. The truth was the relation between her and her mother was from a traditional loving one and technically she was an adult thus she didn't need to obey, but on the other hand she was still the wife of the minister and held considerable sway and could make her life very difficult if she didn't obey. For now she would at least pretend to obey – no need to make things difficult if she didn't benefit from it.

* * *

**Author notes:**

Yep a Fem!Blaise it's been a while since I have seen that. I know in canon he is guy and a pretty minor character, but I personally think the guy had some serious wasted potential. I mean his mother married seven times and all those husbands have died. Wont that have at least some impact on his personality?

As for turning her female? Don't worry I have a reason for that. I don't just go around genderbending people for no other reason than that it would amuse me. Besides this is an AU so technically it is possible.

As for the house? Harry was given the choice, that doesn't mean that the house he choose fits him perfect. I think if a eleven year old is allowed to influence where they go then an adult should be allowed to choose for himself. I personally think Harry (in this story) is a Gryffindor at heart and a Slytherin in mind.

**Edit: **So who saw Hufflepuff!Harry coming? I mean seriously most of my reviewers wanted him to go either to Ravenclaw or Slytherin and several also absolutely didn't want him to go to Gryffindor, but almost no one mentioned the last house.

**Next chapter: chapter nine: Getting settled in **


	9. Getting settled in

**Chapter nine: Getting settled in**

The opening feast had just ended and Harry and the first years were following Rose and the male fifth year prefect, whose face Harry recognised, but he couldn't place a name with it. They were on their way to the Hufflepuff common room. Harry himself knew where it was so he could have easily gone there himself, but as he technically wasn't supposed to know where it was (and he really did not want to explain how he knew), he decided to just follow tradition and follow the first years.

As they were walking through the familiar corridors Harry was thinking back to the feast. It hadn't gone as badly as he had feared. While a lot of curious looks were directed toward him at least no one had stood up to approach him and those surrounding him did question him about things, but they were at least considerate enough that when Harry deflected a question that they didn't push it.

After walking for several moments longer the group gathered in front of a painting of a woman dressed in yellowed coloured dress.

''This is the entrance to our common room,'' The male prefect said. ''The current password is 'Loyalty'. The password will change every other week. The new password will be posted on the notice board, the day before the change so make sure to check it.'' He said before giving the password to the portrait.

He then lead the group into the small common room of Hufflepuff. Harry himself had only been here once, but back then he had been under his invincibility cloak so he hadn't really taken in his surroundings too much back then.

Of course he had heard enough about it from Susan that even without having been here he could have given a pretty good description about the room. The Huffepulf dormitory was designed with true homage to their mascot in mind. The room they were currently in was rather small and was known as the entrance room.

What little room, the room had was filled with armchairs and a couple of tables, but what really was noteworthy of the room were the dozen of corridors that led out of the room. Harry knew that some of them lead to the so called 'year common rooms' which were basically common rooms were year mates could gather. Each of those common rooms had two other corridors connected to them, one leading to the girls dorm and another to the boy's one.

Beside the seven corridors leading to the 'year common rooms' there were also varying other corridors some led to private study places, another led to the main common room and other ended in just a plain dead end. The fact that those corridors also intersected each other made the whole thing a maze to all those who didn't know the way.

Of course almost all this was only what he had heard and Harry honestly doubted he knew everything regarding the place.

It was at this moment that the male prefect spoke up again as the first years were all in. ''Welcome to Hufflepuff,'' He said, ''This is the entrance room, from here you can reach the varies other rooms of our dormitory. `My name is Jonathan Baker and I am your fifth year prefect,'' He then gestured to Rose and said. ''And this is Rosaline Potter, the female fifth year prefect.''

All eyes turned to said girl and she swallowed visibly before gathering her courage, ''Hi, you can all just call me Rose.'' She said with a small smile, ''Like Jonathan said, welcome to Hufflepuff. We, the prefect besides enforcing the rules are first and foremost here for you. So if anyone of you have any problems or just want to talk, just come to any of us prefects. We all wear this badge.'' She said as she pointed toward her own badge, while Jonathan mirrored her movements, ''Now I believe our head of house wants to address you,''

The rather plump looking witch Harry had noticed entering silently earlier stepped forward and gave the first years a bright smile. ''Thank you Ms Potter, I will take it from here.'' She said before walking toward the middle of the room, so that all the first years and the few remaining upper years could see her properly. She then turned and faced the occupants of the room and addressed them. ''Firstly I am professor Sprout, I teach Herbology and I am your head of house. To all the new students I say welcome to Hufflepuff! And to all those coming back, welcome back!''

''Now I am sure you are all pretty tired, so I will keep it short. Hufflepuff house values many things one of them is loyalty. While it pains me to say it, the rest of Hogwarts doesn't have a too high a opinion of our house, therefore we must ensure we always watch out for each other. Of course I am not telling you to cover for someone if he or she does something wrong, but under normal circumstances try to look out for each other. If you have any problems then the upper years will almost always be ready to assist and of course the door to my office is always open for any of you.''

She paused for a moment before giving her parting comments, ''Now then, I have kept you up long enough. Tomorrow breakfast will be served at half past eight so make sure you don't oversleep. Your schedule will be given to you during breakfast, so don't worry about that just yet.'' She then turned to the two prefects, ''Ms Potter, Mr Baker, please escort the first year to their year common room, Mr Potter, please follow me as I show you yours.''

''I must say, I am surprised to see you here Mr Potter.'' Sprout said after she and Harry had entered one of the corridors.

''Oh?'' Harry said questioningly.

Sprout nodded, ''After giving oaths of silence, the headmaster had informed us heads of houses about your past. I would have assumed you would have joined your old house. Especially considering that you counterpart was also part of that house.''

Upon hearing this Harry made a mental note to find out what those 'oaths of silence' exactly were. He knew that there were other magical oaths out there other than the unbreakable vow, but all of them were weaker and if it was Dumbledore that made them make the vow then the consequences couldn't be that bad, right? Then again Dumbledore always did like his secrets so he probably wouldn't release information if he couldn't control it to some extent.

''People change over time.'' He replied after a moment of silence.

Sprout nodded, ''That is true,'' She said before pulling to a stop and turning around to face Harry. She studied his face for a moment, seemingly looking for something, she then smiled warmly at him and said. ''Mr Potter, I doubt I can even envision what you went through, but if you ever want to talk about it or anything else. The door to my office is open, just like it is for any of my Badgers.''

''Than you professor Sprout,'' Harry replied after a moment pause and gave her a smile in appreciation. He may care little for her subject, but she was always a friendly person. She was probably another reason why had joined this house. Of the four heads, she was the most involved with her house.

''Of course, Mr Potter.'' She then turned back around and they continued on their track. After walking for several minutes they came upon a door with a large seven on it. ''This is the seventh year common room, Mr Potter. I will leave you here to get acquainted with your year mates, goodnight and I will see you tomorrow at breakfast.'' She said before turning around again and walking back the way they had come. Harry stared at the door for a moment and then slowly opened it.

Once the door opened Harry quickly scanned the room. The room wasn't too big. It had three armchair and two couches with a low table in between the couches. There were of course also the two corridors that led to boys and girls room.

What was more noteworthy were the five people who were sitting on the two couches. They had apparently not noticed him yet as they were happily chatting with each other. Harry frowned for a moment for their lack of awareness of their surroundings before he forcibly reminded himself that those five were just students and not former militia like himself.

Sitting on one of the couches were the three seventh year girls; Susan Bones, Hannah Abbot and Megan Jones.

For Harry, seeing Susan who was sitting on the far right was arguably one of the strangest things he had seen since coming here. He wasn't honestly not sure what looked stranger; Her looking all happy and smiling or her still having both arms. It just confirmed to him that these were not the people he knew.

His eyes moves to the girl next to Susan; Hannah Abbott, the best friend of Susan in his universe and by the looks of it here too. He had never known Hannah to well in his own universe. From what he remembered she had worn of those Potter stinks! badges, but he really couldn't bring himself to blame her for that as for one that felt like a lifetime ago and for another they really had just been children back then. By the end of the war Hannah had been MIA, normally that meant death, but Harry couldn't bring her shade back, so she might have suffered a faith worse than death or she had remained behind on earth as a Ghost.

The last on the couch was Megan Jones. He had had little interactions with her counterpart as she had died during the massacre, but he had met her aunt Hestia Jones, a former cult member a couple of times and she had mentioned the girl a couple of times.

Moving his eyes opposite of the girls. Harry spotted the two boys? Wait two? Justin Finch-Fletchley was there, a young man who's counterpart had made it all the way to the final battle, but was ultimately crushed by a falling giant. He had been a bit naïve in his Hogwarts years, especially in his second year, but he grew up to be someone you could rely on.

Next to him was a boy who's counterpart had been another victim of the massacre, Ernie Macmillan. Like with Megan due to the boy's early death, Harry hadn't known him that well, but what he did knew was that the guy had always been a bit of a pompous ass, but he had always been really loyal to his house and had been a hardworking student.

So Susan, Hannah, Megan, Justin and Ernie were here, but where was that traitorous piece of shit, Smith? Perhaps he was dead? Or perhaps he was sorted in another house? And for that matter where was Hopkins?

Harry mentally cursed as he added yet another thing to his 'to find out' list. He didn't let his irritation at his growing mental list show however as he put a (slightly fake) smile on his face and coughed loudly.

The five young adults all stopped talking and turned to Harry. The next couple of moments could only be described with one word; awkward. If Harry was any other person that he would probably be unnerved by five people gapping at him, but he wasn't that easily intimidated so his smile grew a bit brighter and he raised his hand in greeting, ''Hi!''

Hannah, true to her house took this as her cue to greet her new housemate warmly as she smiled at him while saying, ''Hi there, eh Harry, come in, sit down.''

Harry genuinely smiled back at her and nodded in appreciation at the icebreaker and took the indicated seat next to Ernie.

''So…. Harry,'' Megan began after another rather awkward silence. '' You are from another universe right?'' At this Harry nodded. ''What does that mean exactly. I have read the Prophet, but it wasn't entirely clear.''

Harry hummed taking a moment formulating a reply. He hoped he had to this little Q&A only once and let the rumour mill do the rest. ''Well to be honest I don't fully understand what it is myself, but from what I understand for every choice that is made a different universe is created where the other choice will happen, but like I said that is what I understand from it. I have no idea of it is the truth.''

''So where you come from is similar, but things are different because different choices were made?'' Justin asked.

''I wouldn't really call it similar,'' Harry replied. ''Even the smallest changes can have large consequences. Like I said my parents didn't survive…''

''What about Rose?'' Megan interrupted.

''My mother as far as I know wasn't pregnant when she died, so she was never conceived … another example of a difference.'' Harry said. ''Back to the parents part – due to their death I was raised by someone else – this alone results in some major difference in personality between the me of this world and myself. Something as insignificant as personality can of course cause big difference, for example one version of me could befriend someone another version of me could absolutely not stand.''

Susan nodded, ''I think I understand. What you are saying is that for example in one universe a person can become a mass murderer while in another he can become a respected healer.''

Harry nodded, ''Right! A bit of an extreme example, but that is indeed correct. Even the smallest of changes can causes big changes in the long run. I mean we all know Dumbledore defeated Grindelwaldall all those years ago right? But what if he hadn't – what would have been the result in that small change of history? Or worse yet what would have happened if Grindelwald and Dumbledore actually had joined forces?''

The room was silencing for a moment seemingly thinking over what for most of them was unthinkable.

''If Universes are so different, then is the one you came from different this this one?'' Ernie asked before hastily tagging on, ''Except the part of your family that is.''

Harry briefly wondered what to reveal and what not before replying, ''Well there was another Goblin rebellion somewhere halfway through my fifth year. It was a pretty bad one, Hogwarts had to close and the ministry had to recruit underage students to compensate for their losses.''

If he talked about Voldemort then he probably wouldn't be believed, but Goblins rebellions were a lot more feasible and this way he wouldn't have to come up with excuses if he woke up in the middle of the night after a nightmare and he had forgotten to cast privacy spells. Besides it wasn't a lie.

The results were as Harry had expected, ''A goblin rebellion?'' Megan asked shocked, while at the same time Hannah asked, ''How did that happen?'' a moment later Susan asked. ''Did you have to fight?'' Justin was only moments later with, ''Another one?'' Finally Ernie exclaimed. ''Close Hogwarts!''

Harry inwardly sighted at the five near simultaneous questions and repositioned himself in a more comparable position on the couch. He had a feeling this was going to be a long night and he sincerely hoped this was going to be worth it.

XxX

Down at the dungeons a single girl was standing in front of an empty bed, her blue eyes were cold and lifeless as she blankly stared in front of her while a lone tear left her eye and dripped down her check.

''_Please!'' A teenage girl begged as she laid broken and beaten on the ground. The girl stretched her hand toward her and the look in her eyes made it almost unbearable to watch. ''Ple-.''_

_but before she could plead again she was cut off by two of the most dreaded words out there. ''_ _Avada kedavra!'' There was a green flash and the hand fell down to the ground, never to rise again._

The blue-eyed girl clenched her fist so hard that she slowly started to bleed. ''I will protect her, no matter the cost.'' She vowed silently.

XxX

Meanwhile in one of the many private rooms of the Ravenclaw tower, one of the new fifth years was admiring her new room. Despite the increased workload her O.W.L. year would no doubt bring her the perk of having a private room that all the upper years of the house of the knowledge had was definitely a good one.

The room itself wasn't that great or big with only her bed, a desk and chair and a large bookcase, but at least she didn't have to share with girls who fawn over Potter anymore.

Speaking of Potter, her 'tutor', she wasn't sure what to think about the guy. On one hand he sort of had agreed to teach her, but on the other hand what the hell was up with taking her wand away and start firing hexes at her! That had bloody hurt. That had basically been the only thing he personally had overseen, the rest was all self-study. Then again it has only been a short while so she couldn't judge really.

Still regardless how much he was teaching her anything he taught her would probably be far more useful than what she was going to learn in her DADA class with Umbridge back again. Weasal five had been bad, but Umbridge had been far worse and she doubted things would be any different this time around.

The only real problem right now was if they were going to continue training here then how would that toad bitch react when she hears that someone was doing her job. Then again this was Potter if anyone could get away with it, it would be him.

'Speaking of Potter,' She thought with a devious smirk, 'Hufflepuff, really? Rose's father probably would not like that!' She was more than willing to pay a good sum of gold to see that asshole's face when he heard the news of Potter's sorting.

XxX

Meanwhile in the other dorm tower of the castle, in a distinctively larger room a redhead was unknowingly doing the same as the brunette prefect, that is enjoying the sight of his new room and thinking about 'his best friend'.

He wasn't sure what to think about him. Harry was Harry right? So even if he came from some different world then he would still be his best friend Harry. So why was he acting so differently? He was willingly spending time with his sister and Black of all people.

Not that he would have minded if Rose was there if he had been there too, after all she had really grown up over the summer, something he was very grateful for considering what he had overhead last year, but still regardless how good looking she had become she was his sister so there really was no point for him to spend time with her, right?

And to make matters worse he had been sorted in Huffelpuf! Hadn't it been Harry who had always said that puffs were lame and uncool?

It must have been Black! She must have used some kind of dark spell on his mate. It was so obvious! Why could no one see that she was evil? She didn't like Harry and even spoke ill of Dumbledore. It was obvious she was a death eater in training, but how was he going to save his mate? Maybe Ginny would know?

XxX

Harry was once again sitting in the armchair in his mindscape while his real body was laying on his new bed surrounded by several protective and privacy wards.

The talk with his new dorm mates had gone surprisingly well. They had had quite a number of questions, but at least they had the courtesy not to continue questioning when it became clear he hadn't wanted to talk about certain subjects.

His new year mates had quickly learned that Harry didn't want to talk about his personal life much, nor would he tell them much about their counterparts, but he did tell them a couple of funny stories of them. Nothing that could really tell much about them, but little things like accidents in class (such as the time he had seen Megan accidently transfigure her hair green)

Still regardless how evasive Harry was on certain subject, the five puffs still welcomed him with open arms. To be honest Harry had been slightly baffled just how trusting they had been. What Harry did not know however was that the seventh years had pulled Rose aside before Harry had arrived and had asked her opinion about him and she had told them he was quite different than her brother and asked them to give him a chance.

If she hadn't, well then the meeting would definitely gone far worse for Harry. You can see much about Puffs, but one thing you can't deny and that is that most are fiercely protective of their housemate, especially their younger ones. And one thing is certain Harry Potter hadn't been popular among the older Hufflepuff students.

XxX

Meanwhile in a completely different castle, an elderly looking man sat in a throne like chair, flanking him on both sides were two standing hooded and cloaked persons.

The room if it could be called that was grand, but sober. It was easily the size of the great hall of Hogwarts, but was much more empty, making the already large room look even larger. The only thing that seems to be in the room was the chair that was as far removed from the only door in the room as possible. The room had no windows and the only sources of light were the torches that adorned the walls.

The man on the chair seemed to be waiting for something, which was proven true moments later as another hooded and cloaked person entered the room.

The person gracefully strode over and when it was only a couple feet from the only visible person it went down on a knee and spoke. ''You summoned me, elder?''

''Yes child, yes I did.'' The man rasped and he gave a small signal with his hand. The one standing right of him immediately obeyed the unspoken command and strode toward the kneeling person and handed it a photo.

The person took the photo and quickly imprinted the physical characteristics of the two people on it in its mind, before pocketing the photo.

''That boy is your new target,'' The elder spoke up again. ''The girl is a secondary target. This order came from that upstart brat, Voldemort himself. I am sure you understand what this means?''

The hooded person nodded before bowing it's head. ''I understand, I will not fail you, elder.''

XxX

"Lupin,''

Said man looked up from the parchment he had been studying and looked at the man who had addressed him before responding, ''Jones, do you have anything to report.''

The man nodded and said, ''There have been rumours floating around about a new dark lord … he calls himself lord Riddle and says he is the true heir of Slytherin.''

This caught Remus attention, ''Really? Any news on Voldemort reaction on it?''

''If rumours are to believed he didn't take it too well.'' The man responded. ''They say that he was the one who put Macnair in the hospital.''

''One of his own inner circle? He must really not have liked it then.'' Remus mussed.

The other man nodded, ''From what I have heard the other packs are reconsidering their allegiance to the dark lord. They think that if he is willing to do that to his closest then what would he do to them, but…''

''They are afraid to go against Voldemort and Fenrir.'' Remus finished with a slight sigh.

The other man nodded solemnly, ''That they are.''

* * *

**Author notes:**

To be honest a bit of short chapter, but I wanted to make Harry's first day at Hogwarts a new chapter. Besides it isn't that short. I am also not too big a fan of switching points of views like this as I prefer keeping things Harry centric, but in this case it was necessary, otherwise certain things would really come out of left field in later chapters.

**Next chapter: chapter ten: The first day back**


	10. The first day back

**Chapter ten: The first day back**

''_No Susan!'' Harry exclaimed as he saw a dark purple coloured curse slice straight through the girl's arm._

_His outcry drew the attention of enemy and ally alike and just for a second the battle halted. In that split second everything seemed to slow down for Harry. He saw Susan lying on the ground, her face extremely pale as she gripped the stump that had once been her arm while more blood escaped from it then could possibly be healthy. He saw his four other teammates all with varying degrees of injuries and then he saw his enemies, six were already down, but still over a dozen remained and If the fight did took much longer than reinforcements might come. _

'_Shit!' Harry cursed mentally, if he didn't do something soon one of his team was going to die. No! he would not let that happen again!_

_Still seemingly in slow motion Harry raised his wand toward the death eater that had fired the curse at Susan and let the anger and hate he felt fuel his next spell. With a snarl Harry spoke the incantation of a dark cutting curse and moments later a dark blue beam left his wand._

_The death eater he had aimed at reacted fast enough and casted a shield, but Harry's curse ploughed through it like it wasn't even there and moments later another body part was cut off, but this time it hadn't been an arm, no Harry had aimed for the neck and his aim had been true._

''_Fay! Help Susan, __Seamus, Astoria protect them,'' Harry ordered before giving an order that clearly contradicted the order he had been given to take prisoners. ''Clara, kill them, kill them all!''_

_While he had been giving orders he hadn't stopped moving and kept attacking his opponents non-verbally. He fought like a man possessed as he mercilessly cut down his opponents. That was until he heard words that would be the cause of nightmares for a long time after that._

''_Harry, I can't close a wound like this!'' Fay exclaimed and Harry chanced activating his magical eye for a moment. After overcoming the discomfort of seeing two different things at the same time Harry cringed when he saw the amount of blood and how deadly pale Susan had become._

''_Astoria Portkey, now!'' He barked as he disobeyed yet another direct order. This time the order that you are absolutely not allowed to make a Portkey to Militia HQ when enemies are still close. _

_Moments later (too long in Harry's opinion) Astoria yelled, ''Done,'' She then grabbed the shoulder of Susan and they disappeared along with Fay who was still trying to stem the bleeding._

_Harry allowed himself a moment to breath a slight sigh of relief before he forced himself to focus on the here and now. He did all he could to make sure Susan survived, it was out of his hands now and right now he had to make sure Seamus and Clara made it back home. _

''_Seamus, back to back,'' He ordered to his only other magic using ally. The Irish did as ordered and so they fought covering each other blind side while Clara fought at closer range. _

_Fifteen minutes later the immortal snapped the neck of the last death eater and Harry took a moment to survey his surroundings. When it became clear there were no more enemies nearby and both remaining team members hadn't any life threatening injuries, he allowed himself to relax slightly. _

''_Clean up,'' He ordered, while his heart shouted at him to go to HQ to see Susan his mind was telling him, that while he probably could get away with breaking the other two orders. Leaving evidence behind of a magical conflict for Muggles to find was something of a completely different scale. _

_As such he levelled his wand at the nearest death eater and muttered a transfiguration spell. Were once had laid the body of a death eater now laid a bone. He then picked it up and walked to his next target. As permanent transfiguration was a bit above his level, he couldn't let them lay there as they would revert back to their original state sooner than later and then there really would be no point in cleaning up._

_After another ten minutes they were done, Harry surveyed his surrounding one last time to make sure nothing was left behind before muttering, ''Let's go.'' _

_Seamus nodded and with a crack he was gone. Harry grabbed Clara's shoulder and with another crack they too left the now empty field. _

_Moments later they reappeared at the only place you could in HQ, a stone room with several guards in it that guarded the only door in the room. _

_Harry strode over to the door, but was stopped by one of the guards. A man in his mid-forties who looked slightly overweight. Harry knew the man as this was hardly the first time he had seen him and one thing was certain he absolutely despised the man._

_His name was Robertson, a former ministry employee and a diehard supporter of the elder council. Harry was also positive the man hadn't set foot outside of the base since the wards went up._

''_Halt, captain Potter.'' He ordered while puffing up his chest. _

_Harry mentally scoffed, this was yet another reason to dislike the guy; his need to address people by these meaningless ranks everyone had been assigned._

''_Fuck off,'' Harry snarled as he strode past the man, not even sparing him a glance. The other guard didn't even attempt to stop him. They were like Harry, people who regularly went outside and they had been there when Fay, Susan and Astoria had arrived so they knew why Harry didn't stop and couldn't fault him for it._

_Robertson however didn't like it that someone of 'lower rank' ignored him like this and yelled, ''I ordered you to stop, captain Potter.''_

_Harry didn't stop, but Clara who along with__ Seamus had been flanking their leader turned around slowly and gave the man a grin that was unlike her normal happy one, in fact it look quite blood thirsty, this along the way her fangs were shown plus with the blood which covered her, she made quite the intimidating figure. ''I believe Harry told you to fuck off. So why don't you go do what you are good in and go suck off… I mean suck up to those farts you call elder council?''_

_Harry meanwhile along with Seamus had broken out in a dead sprint as they made their way to the medical wing in no time at all. There sitting in a bench he found a sobbing Fay with Astoria next to her. _

_While the younger girl wasn't showing her emotions as openly as Harry's former housemate, her eyes betrayed her true feelings as the sadness was visible for anyone who took a moment to look._

_Harry felt his hart sink as he mustered up the words he wasn't sure he wanted to know. ''How is she?'' The moment he opened his mouth, the two witches who until now hadn't noticed him focused on him and before he knew he was engulfed in a tight hug by a very distraught and sobbing witch. _

''_They- they said she might not make it.'' Fay said between sobs._

_As Harry held the sobbing girl in his arms he never once noticed the intrigued and unique looking pair of eyes that were watching him from a distance_

XxX

Harry woke up with a startle, he hadn't dreamt of that day in a long time. He briefly wondered what the hell had triggered that. Maybe him meeting the girl's counterpart hadn't left him as unaffected as he had originally thought?

Still regardless what had triggered it, he was awake now and it was doubtful he would be able to naturally fall in sleep again after that dream any time soon.

He mentally cursed the addictive properties of dreamless sleep potion. He had at one point after a week of constant nightmares considered just using the potion every night. Somehow (he still wasn't sure how) Mrs Dunbar had found out and well let's keep it at that he learned exactly why that was a bad idea after a literally three hour lecture.

Still if he was awake then there was no point in remaining in bed. After picking his wand up from its position next to his pillow, he used it to bring the protections around his bed down.

After opening the curtains he looked at the clock that was hanging on the wall and saw that it was only half past four – too early for breakfast to be served (trough there probably would be elves in the kitchen who would gladly make something for him) and too early for the library to be opened.

Still he was awake now and he really didn't want to waste his time doing nothing. Right now he also didn't practically feel like reading, his body might be awake, but that didn't mean his mind was all the way there.

Then again if the mind couldn't be trained then the body definitely could, he might have told Alex to do stamina training, but to be honest he pretty much has neglected his own training after the final battle.

Of course he probably still was in far better condition than most of his fellow students, but he really needed to restart his training and what place was better for stamina training than a castle full with staircases?

Having decided that, he stepped out of his bed and went through his trunk and after a moment he fished out a piece of clothing that could be used for exercising. James had looked at him strangely when he had wanted to go into Muggle London to for clothes shopping, but Harry was definitely glad he did. He really did not want to know what magical people considered exercise clothing (assuming they had any) considering what they normally worn.

His outfit was rather simple; underwear, sneakers, sweatpants, one of his wand holsters and a simple t-shirt was all what he had donned for his exercises. After putting on his shoes he started walking out of the dorm.

Once outside of the Hufflepuff dorm he started stretching and after he was good and warm he started running toward a random direction.

XxX

A hour later found a still slightly out of breath Harry Potter under the showers. His little run hadn't been fun. In the militia he and his team when they exercised usually ran circles in one of the larger rooms of HQ. Running up and down stairs like he just had been doing was definitely different. That and perhaps his stamina had slipped worse than he had thought. Of course running around in new shoes hadn't been the most pleasant experience either. Then again, it is as they say no pain no gain.

Harry at least knew one thing for sure, morning runs would definitely become a permanent thing for his schedule in the near future. After all the things he survived he refused to die a pathetic dead because he got tired in the middle of the duel.

The only thing he had to make certain was that his run routes wouldn't become predictable. At HQ surrounded by his team he had been relatively safe, but here he could easily be ambushed if he became predictable.

There was also no denying that this definitely helped him wake up. As good as a strong cup of coffee was to wake one up, nothing could beat physical exercises.

XxX

The Great Hall was empty when Harry entered just slightly over six o' clock, but Harry wasn't surprised at that as breakfast wouldn't be served for nearly half an hour and most students probably wouldn't come in until near the end of the breakfast .

Harry didn't mind however as he made his way over towards his house table and sat down in position as far away from the door and by extension closest to the head table.

If there was one thing he did not like about the house he had chosen, it was that their house table was in between two others. Luckily the Hufflepuff table was in between the Gryffindor and the Ravenclaw one. While he had nothing against Slytherins personally he had the feeling that they would be the most difficult to convince that he wasn't his counterpart. Well the Gryffindors probably would be just as hard, but at least they had been his old house and it was doubtful he had made much enemies within them.

Mentally shrugging and writing his current thoughts off as something of which he could do nothing about right now, Harry pulled his Curses and counter curses volume 4 he had begun reading at Potter from his bag and opened the book from its marked position.

He didn't get to read long however as after barely ten minutes had passed, Harry felt someone approach. Briefly glancing toward the entrance of the hall, he spotted none other than the head girl herself.

The girl dressed in her Slytherin uniform was looking rather impeccable, something which could probable be said about few students in this early hour. He himself could definitely not claim that, considering the way his tie was. At least his hair didn't look like a complete mess anymore. Ever since he was 'convinced' to cut it, it has become much easier to control it.

It quickly become clear to Harry that the girl wanted something from him as she instead of walking toward her table walked in between the Ravenclaw and the Hufflepuff table toward where he was sitting.

When she reached where Harry was sitting she took a seat opposite of Harry, seemingly unconcerned that this wasn't her house table.

Taking it all in stride, Harry greeted the blonde. ''Good morning Ms Fudge.''

Harry spotted a brief hint of irritation that crossed the girl's unnatural bright blue eyes before she managed to mask it, ''**Zabini**-Fudge,'' She said, speaking with a very distinct accent Harry couldn't immediately place as she emphasised the first part. ''But, you may call me Blaise, Harry – you don't mind I call you Harry right?''

Harry tilted his head slightly to the side and looked at the girl in a analysing manner before he shrugged, ''Sure Blaise, I don't mind.''

The girl beamed at him, seemingly pleased with his reply. ''Well then nice to meet you, Harry.'' She said before continuing. ''Anyway as I am sure you know I am this year's head girl and considering you are a new student I would like you to know that you can always come to me for help. I know Slytherin has a rather bad reputation, but believe I am always available if you need help.''

Harry nodded and smiled back at her, ''Thanks, I will remember that.''

If possible the girl's beaming smile got brighter and she near exclaimed, ''Great!'' before continuing on a more normal tone, ''Well then I guess I will leave you to you reading, I see you around, Harry''

''See you,'' Harry replied as the girl stood up and instead of moving toward her house table made her way out of the hall.

Harry followed the girl with his eyes as his smile slowly disappeared, 'that girl lacks subtlety,' He mused. Still her appearance here wasn't random she knew he was here and she probably also knew he was alone. And what was with those eyes? Those were definitely not normal on a full human. 'This girl is definably one I have to keep an eye on,' He thought before going back to his book.

He only got a couple of pages further before another person entered the hall, this time it was the headmaster itself that made a bee-line toward Harry.

''Headmaster,'' Harry greeted when the man came into hearing rage.

''Ah Mr Potter, you are up rather early.'' The older man said. ''It's not often I see students arrive at breakfast before it even starts.''

The younger of the two shrugged, ''I don't sleep much,'' He replied before asking, ''Do you have the notes.''

''Ah yes,'' Dumbledore replied, ''I have them right here,'' He said before taking out a stack of parchments from his robes.

Harry took it and briefly glanced through it before nodding toward the still waiting headmaster, ''Thank you,''

Dumbledore waved his thanks off, ''Just keeping my promises Mr Potter.'' He replied, ''So how are settling in your new dorm? I must admit it was a surprise to many that you went to that house.''

''I am settling in just fine, sir.'' Harry replied as she stuffed the stack of parchments in his bag. ''As for my house? Well if the hat sorted me there then I guess I belong there.''

Dumbledore nodded wisely, ''Indeed, if the sorting things so that I guess that is true.''

It was at this moment, the door of the hall opened and Alex followed by a number of first year Ravenclaws entered and Dumbledore seemed to take this as his cue to leave. Then suddenly just moments after Dumbledore had left, the elves began breakfast by sending up the food from the kitchen.

Harry put his book away and loaded his plate full. He then did his customary check for any potions and after he was satisfied nothing was in it started his morning meal while at the same time ignoring the bunch of first years who were not so subtly gawking at him.

XxX

Slowly but surely the hall started to fill as more and more people entered the hall, most were just as tactless as the first years Ravenclaws when it came to Harry as a good majority of the hall seemed to be find a eating Harry Potter the most fascinating thing in the world. Luckily for Harry no one had found the courage to approach him yet, unfortunately his luck couldn't hold for long.

Harry wasn't comfortable in his current position. It has been a long time since he had been surrounded by so many people and if it hadn't been a sign of weakness he had bolted out of the hall a long time ago.

He was currently surrounded by his fellow seventh years, who had joined him when they saw him sitting alone and had greeted him warmly. He did feel a bit better with them around. While he did not trust them outright, he did consider himself to be a pretty good judge of character and from what he had observed they would stand with him if necessary (unless it is against a housemate).

Then suddenly he saw someone approach his position from the corner of his eye and moments later said eye was blinded by a flash.

Mentally cursing for getting caught off guard like this he fired from his hand a wandless and wordless banishing charm in the general direction where the flash had come from while at the same time he activated his magical eye to see what the hell that was.

What he saw however was not what he was expecting, lying on the ground clearly knocked over by the weak banishing charm was none other than his former fanboy, Colin Creevey with his camera still clustered tightly in his hands.

Harry quickly lowered his hand and donned a surprised expression. He had barely raised his hand so it was doubtful anyone had seen it and even if they did very few students bothered learning to control their magic at such an early age so few would see his hand gesture as wandless magic.

He also mentally berated himself, he could not be seen attacking students left and right, but at the same time he berated himself for something worse. He was caught off guard. What if that hadn't been the flash of a camera, but instead the green light of the killing curse?

Unaware of the thoughts of the person next to him, Justin asked, ''Are you all right there, Creevey?''

The boy slowly stood up and after checking if his camera was undamaged, he said ''Yeah, yeah I am fine, must have tripped or something.'' He then turned toward Harry with a look of such adoration that it slightly unnerved Harry. ''Harry!'' He squeaked.

''Uh hi?'' Harry half asked, half questioned. Could it be possible was this Collin worse than the one he knew?

''I can't believe it is really you. Well not you, but it is still you, right? right?'' He rambled excitedly.

The sad thing was even after this outburst, Harry still wasn't sure which one was worse.

Harry briefly pondered how to semi-politely tell the kid to fuck off, there was already enough attention directed to him, there really was no need for a hyperactive fanboy to direct even more attention to his direction.

Fortunately for Harry however he didn't have to come up with anything as his head of house choose that moment to appear behind the younger boy. ''Mr Creevey, excuse me for a moment, I would like a word with my seventh years students.''

Said boy didn't seem to want to leave his idol, but knew better than to disobey a teacher, even if said teacher was Sprout, so he went and sat at his house table, of course he still sat as close to Harry as possible.

Spout seemed satisfied and pulled out a couple pieces of parchments out of her robes. She then handed a piece over to each of Harry's year mate and briefly exchanged words with them and then she finally reached Harry.

''Good morning, Mr Potter,'' She greeted as she handled over the last piece of parchment and when Harry looked over it he saw it was his schedule. "All you teachers have allowed you to enter their classes, but professor Babbling wants you to be a half hour early for you first lesson, she wants to test you.''

Harry nodded and thanked the professor before he looked over the rather empty schedule. Today, Monday he only had Ancient Runes which would start right after breakfast ended and would last two hours. Tomorrow he had two lessons; a double hour Charms starting at eleven and a double hour DADA, starting at three. On Wednesday his schedule was completely blank (nice!). On Thursday he only had a single lesson, This time it was a double hour Transfigurations that started at two o' clock. On Friday there was a surprise apparently he had from one to five something called cultural education.

All things considered Harry thought his schedule looked to be a lot more relaxing then his fifth year one had been. Then again he only took four courses opposed to what he took in his O.W.L. year … well apparently five, what the hell was cultural education? And a four hour class? Normally a double hour is the longest class.

Glancing at his watch he saw that he still had quite some time until breakfast would end, but he had eaten something and received what he came her for and to be honest he rather not stay here much longer. If he went now then he would have all the time in the world to get his books from the dorm. Not only that, but he also wouldn't have all those people who come late to breakfast staring at him.

He stood up and Justin seeing this asked, ''Going already, Harry?''

Harry just gave a nod, ''Professor Babbling wants to see me and I wish to familiarise myself a bit with the castle again,''

Justin frowned for a moment and his eyes first briefly glanced over the hall taking in all the people staring at his new housemate before glancing at his almost still full plate before offering, ''You want me to walk with you?''

Harry shook his head, ''No, that isn't necessary, thanks for the offer trough.'' He said with a slight smile. Having said that he walked out of the hall, eyes straight ahead and expertly ignoring that by now each and every eye was on him.

XxX

After collecting his stuff for the day Harry made his way over to where he knew Ancient Runes would be taught and knocked on the door.

''Enter,''

He opened the door and entered the room that looked like a pretty standard class room. The only real thing of note were the posters of several of the more commonly used runic alphabets that adorned the walls.

Already sitting behind her desk was the owner of the voice that had told him to enter, professor Bathsheda Babbling, Ancient Runes professor and member of the Order of the Phoenix.

''Professor,'' He greeted, ''Professor Sprout told me you wanted to speak with me before the lessons would start?''

''Yes Mr Potter that's correct.'' The professor replied. "As I have no record whatsoever regarding your skill level in my subject I would like to give you a small test before I let you in my class.''

Harry nodded, ''Understandable,''

Pointing at something already lying on her desk, the professor asked, ''Do you know what this is Mr Potter?''

Harry glanced at where the professor pointing and saw a flat black stone with engraving carved into it and recognized it easily enough. ''A ward stone with a runic array engraved on it, professor.''

''Correct again Mr Potter, now what can you tell me about what it does?''

Walking closer to the desk, Harry looked a bit more closer at the stone and then pointed at a Rune in the middle of the stone. ''This means identification and it is connected to this Rune, ''He said as he pointed at another Rune which was connected to the first one with a small line, ''And this one means friend or ally, I can't really remember the difference.''

''That one means friend Mr Potter,'' The professor cut in, before saying ''Please continue.''

''Mm all other Runes seemed to be connected to those two so it can be assumed that those two form the core of the array, the on/ off switch if you will. Most likely the wards will only activate if you don't qualify as friend, although there are no additional Runes to clarify what friend is, so something probably will have to be connected to that Rune to work.''

''So far so good Mr Potter, what else can you tell me about it?''

Harry studied the Runes a bit more closely and continued speaking. ''Well … although all Runes are connected to the two Runes in the middle they also seem to follow a distinct route,'' He said as he traced a line of Runes with his finger in a circle like move. ''Every 'stop' of the Runes seems to consist out of a set of two Runes. The left one seem to be what it is and the right one a affect. These,'' he said as pointed at three identical Runes, ''Mean warning,'' His finger then trailed over the three other Runes at the left, ''And those mean punishment.''

He then pointed at the first right one,'' The right Runes are a bit more harder for me to identify for me, but I can assume they are all effects. That one at least I know means misdirection, probably some kind of compulsion ward or a notice-me-not ward, I'm not sure. ''He then pointed at the second one,'' That one means sleep. It is doubtful it will actually put you to sleep, but considering it is the second stage of the line it is probably made to argument whatever the effect of the first Rune is. ''I haven't have the faintest idea what the third one is, but as it is still part of the warning line I can assume it is non-lethal.''

''The first one of the punishment line means pain, considering it is the first in the line it is probably not to severe, especially considering what langue this Rune came from. The second in the line I don't recognise and the third …'' Here he fell silent for a moment before he continued, saying the effect of a ward he had once seen the effect of, ''Means disintegrate.''

''Very good so far Mr Potter, those you had managed to identify were indeed correct and those you did not were not fifth year material anyway so you shouldn't feel bad if you couldn't. Now is there anything else you can tell me about the array?''

Harry looked closely at the stone again and after a moment he concluded that as far as he knew he hadn't missed anything other than the effect he didn't know about. "No,''

Babbling sighted, ''You seem to have a good grasp of the meaning of Runes, probably above that of a fifth year, but it is clear that you have no formal education in my subject considering I teach my third year students that under no circumstances are you allowed to mix Runes from different languages into a single array.''

Harry blinked in surprise, this was definitely new information to him. ''Uh what exactly happens if you do?''

''Well that depends on how much magic is poured in the array, but usually at the very least magical exhaustion for the one trying the power it up due to magical backslash or worst case scenery it blows up and depending how much magic is poured in it, the blast radius can be quite extensive.''

Harry resisted the urge to chuckle nervously, it seems lady luck hadn't left him entirely after all. After all during the war he had occasionally made a ward stone and it was honestly only due dumb luck that he never used different languages runes in his arrays.

The professor looked thoughtful for a moment before seemingly coming to a decision, ''I will allow you in my O.W.L. class for now Mr Potter, but however I want you I my office next Saturday so I can quiz you a bit more about the third and fourth year Curriculum and see where you stand. Now please take a seat as class will start in a couple minutes.

Harry nodded and took a seat in the back corner of the room, a place where he could see the entire class easily as the professor went and walked to the door to let the waiting students in.

As the students walked, Harry noticed three things. One was that the class was pretty small, the second was that all four houses seem to take this course at the same time and the third was that he saw three familiar persons walk in.

The first two were Alex and Rose, but the third gave him a moment pause, Astoria Greengrass strode in the classroom with a small smile on her face as she chatted with the person next to her. Like with Susan it was just plain strange to see her like this, but as he looked closer he noticed that the smile didn't completely reach her eyes and the pain of loss could be seen in her eyes. It was not as prominent as with the Astoria he knew, but this one definitely had it if you know where to look.

He briefly wondered what would have caused this. He had spotted Daphne Greengrass sitting at the Slytherin table so her family couldn't have been murdered. Then what was it? Then again did it really matter? Astoria was not his teammate anymore. He did not have to look after her, especially considering he knew she was more than capable to do that herself.

Harry was broken out of his thoughts when he heard someone call his name, ''Harry?''

''Hey Rose,'' He greeted, ''Do you want to sit here?'' He asked as he pointed to the three free seats next to him. If anyone had to sit next to him, then he rather have someone he knew. Trough he briefly wondered why Alex was glaring at him this time. The last time he had seen her was in the train and she didn't seem angry at him then … strange.

Rose glanced at the two witches at her side, Alex shrugged and Astoria looked surprised for a moment, but then nodded anyway. The girls quickly sat down as soon as they realised that they were one of the last ones standing.

XxX

As soon as everyone was seated Professor Bbabbling plopped downed at her desk and gave the entire class a grin, the likes that really shouldn't be on the face of a professor, before speaking up, ''Welcome back everyone to fifth year Ancient Runes! Now as this is you first lesson of your O.W.L year I probably should go on some long preach about the importance of the O.W.L exams, but seeing as I can still clearly remember how stressful it was when each and every teacher gave that preach I have decided against it. Instead I will leave it to the core teachers to stress you out, isn't that great? ''

Harry stared at the woman in bafflement and wondered what happened to the somewhat formal woman that he had been talking with just moments before. Glancing around he noticed that no one had bat an eye at her way of speaking and Harry could only conclude that this must be normal for them. Strange, here he thought he had a pretty good grasp of her personality after meeting her twice, but it seems he was wrong. Then again he knew that the professor was a former Slytherin who were notorious for showing the world the image they wanted to be seen in (something which Harry knew from experience was a lot harder to do than most people thought).

''Okay boys and girls listen up,'' The professor spoke up again. ''This year things will be a little different. For the last two years you had the questionable pleasure of going through book after book after book learning about the meaning of Runes and the various ways to use it.'' The way she said it made it obviously clear what she thought about theoretical lessons. ''But!'' She near exclaimed as her grin became a bit brighter. ''That changes this year as I finally am allowed to give you some practical lessons!''

She then muttered something that Harry couldn't completely hear, but it sounded suspiciously like 'Stupid meddlesome ministry, deciding what I am allowed to teach'

''Now I am sure you are all wondering what this mean right? Well basically for the rest of the year you all are going to do 'projects'. These projects will be the same thing you will have to do for your O.W.L. Runes practical. For your O.W.L practical you will basically get a parchments with a list of effects and then it will be expected of you to design a Rune array that causes those effects within the allotted time of course.''

When the professor saw a lot of apprehensive faces she tried to comfort her students, Harry thought she could have better kept her mouth shut. ''Don't worry this will only a O.W.L level array, very easy stuff really … in comparison to what you will be expected to design during your N.E.W.T. exam this will really be a cakewalk.''

''Now then unlike your O.W.L where you only will get two hours, I will give you four weeks to do each project. Each project will be slightly harder than the next and by the time of the O.W.L exams you should be at the level that you should easily score a Exceed expectations if not an outstanding. Now I understand this may be a plunge in the deep for many of you so for first two project I will allow you to work in groups consisting of no more than four people.''

This causes some exited chatter as some people exchanged glances, non-verbally asking if they wanted to team up.

''Now then …'' The professor said, immediately silencing the few still talking. ''I have a couple more things to announce before I will explain the project for the next month so listen up. First off this year I will only teach for one hour, the second is for the people who have questions regarding their projects. I will be there to answer any question you may have, but don't come here saying you don't understand anything, if you do that then I putt you back with the third years as it is clear you haven't learned anything for the last two years. Also don't come the last week with barely anything done. If you have a problem come immediately. These array should be able to be drawn in less than an hour you will get four weeks so don't come bullshitting to me that you had to little time, okay?''

''Secondly, under NO CIRCUMSTANCES are you people allowed to activate an array without my strict supervision. Anyone caught doing it will no longer be welcome in my class and can say bye-bye to ever obtaining their O.W.L and N.E.W.T. in this subject. Finally I expect a detailed report describing why you chose the Runes in you array and what their functions are. This will not be expected of you in your O. , but again now you have more than enough time and believe me this will definitely help you. Now then for you first project …''

She then began a twenty minute lecture on what she expected while giving some general tips on how to accomplish it.

XxX

Two and half hour later found four students sitting around a table in the library. ''So we are doing this project together?'' Alex asked, not sounding all that trilled.

''I don't really mind,'' Astoria replied, ''It's our first project so it probably will be easier to just do it with as many people as allowed and we always can ask my sister if we still can't do it. She takes the N.E.W.T. class after all. So this shouldn't be a problem for her.''

''We won't really learn anything if we let your sister help us.'' Rose commented.

Harry meanwhile was sketching some Runes on a spare piece of parchment as he listened with half a ear to the three girls. The task they had received was in his eyes simple enough; make an array that upon touch will colour either blue or pink depending on the gender. So while he was confident what he had just drawn was correct, he wasn't arrogant enough to not ask for a second opinion, especially not after he had just heard his earlier arrays could have blown up in his face.

''So what are you doing Potter?'' Astoria asked, she found it strange that Potter of all people had invited them to sit with him, but then again considering what he said before his sorting she shouldn't be that surprised, but still it was just weird. For now she would at least treat him cordially until she could get the full story from either Alex or Rose. Probably both considering how each of them often led their personality influence how they talk about things.

''Mm … oh this.'' He said as he showed the piece of parchment to the girl opposite of him. ''I think the identification part and the colouring part are correct, but I am not sure as I never had to make something like this.''

Astoria stared at the parchment for a moment, as did Alex who was sitting next to her and after several seconds of silence Astoria finally voiced her thoughts. ''Did you just drew something where we got a month for in ten minutes?''

Harry shrugged, ''We still need to make that rapport and like I said I am not completely positive that it is correct.''

''I don't see anything wrong with it … do you two?'' Astoria asked the other girls.

As they both gave a negative answer, Astoria said, ''We could always have my sister have a look at it before we start the report and before you object Rose, she will just look it over nothing more.''

The redhead girl sitting next to Harry looked thoughtful for a moment, but then relented. ''Okay … and Harry, next time you will not be the only one who will work on this.''

Harry nodded, he honestly didn't care considering how little time he had spent on it, but then again the was only the first one, the next one should be harder.

Shortly after that it was decided that Astoria would take the array with her and show it to Daphne and they would take it from there.

XxX

Shortly after that the group broke up and both Rose and Astoria left the library. Alex however had asked Harry to stay behind as she according to her had something to discuss with him.

''So…?'' Harry inquired as soon as they were alone.

''Are you still going to tutor me?''

Harry shrugged, ''I said I would didn't I?''

Alex hummed, ''You said you never had Umbridge right?''

Harry shook his head, ''I barely recognised the name. Why? Is she going to be a problem?''

''Well for one she really won't like it if someone else does her work and I don't think she want anyone to learn something useful to begin with.''

''What do you mean?''

''Everything she thought was purely theoretical and if she was questioned if we were going to do anything practical she would say we wouldn't need it.''

"Okay … so she won't like it, but there are no rules against it right?''

''Non that I know about it, but if she gets the ministry involved than that rule will be there sooner than later.''

''I see … so what else can you tell me about her? What is her view on the whole blood purity thing?''

Alex frowned for a moment wondering what that had to do with it, but answered regardless, ''From what I have heard she is a strong supporter of the pure blood movement.''

Harry frowned for a moment at hearing this information but then schooled his facial expression back to neutral. ''Then if she asks about why I am teaching you just tell her that your father, the head of a pureblood house is afraid someone might target his only daughter and has hired someone to teach her to defend herself. Make sure you emphasize that you think her teachings are more than enough and that you think your father is just being overprotective and that I am not trying to undermine her, but I considering I don't have any money in this world am just trying to earn some pocket money.''

Alex just stared at Harry for a moment wondering how he just came up with such a bullshit story that might be believable to those that weren't close to her in a matter of minutes.

''And you think she will believe this?''

Harry shrugged, ''I have only met her once so I can't asses her properly, but most supremacist are rather predictable. Lay the blame of your tutoring sessions with a pureblood, one point for you, stroke her ego thinking her lessons are better than that of the boy-who-lived, another point for you and if you manage to convince you father to actually pay me than you really will be believable.''

''So you just doing it for the money?'' Alex asked with a scowl.

Harry gave the girl a true genuine grin, ''Would my answer really matter? I do things for my own reasons. Maybe I want to make you stronger, maybe I want to earn money or maybe I want one and the other is just a nice additional benefit.'' He then stood up and gave her the parting words. ''I go on my morning runs around half past four. If you want to join me make sure you are in the entry hall around that time.''

* * *

**Author notes:**

Damn I really can't stick to my own plans can I? Oh well it's not like I ruined to many future plans with this.

Anyway I have a question for my readers; what do you think is the morally worst unforgivable? Personally I think the Imperius, but I am curious what you people think.

Next chapter we will finally have what a number of my readers have been waiting for the Harry/Ginny/Ron meeting and probably the first Harry/Daphne meeting (not sure on that according to my notes she should have made her first appearance in this chapter, but it just didn't work out).

**Next chapter: Two Gingers and a Toad**


	11. Two Gingers and a Toad

**Chapter eleven: Two Gingers and a Toad**

Tuesday morning on what many considered a ungodly hour found a dressed in his exercised clothing Harry Potter walking through the halls of Hogwarts with a steaming cup off dark blue liquid in his hand.

Last night had not been a good night for him. As he had not homework whatsoever to worry about Harry had retreated back to his bed and after casting the standard wards had pulled out both the diary and the notes he had received that morning.

After five straight hours he had went over everything he had and he could only conclude one thing; he was way over his head. The Runic array that was used alone was already way over his head. While he understood parts of it, the greater part he had no idea what they were for.

In the end Harry decided to just call it a night for now, but unfortunately for him the crappy night was just starting for him, as after only three hours Harry awoke again, waking up after another nightmare this time reliving the time his team had been send to Greengrass manor after the wards of that place had fallen. The dream had been strange to Harry it felt more real, more like a memory than an actually dream. He also for some reason had the distinct impression of someone watching him throughout the entire dream.

Harry broke out of his thought when he entered the entrance hall. The one who was responsible for breaking him out of his thoughts was leaning against a wall and looked like she was actually sleeping standing up.

Standing there with half lidded eyes and head dipped low was none other than Alexandra Black or as she preferred to be called Alex. 'Well at least she is dedicated.' Harry mused, she may look like she was still half asleep, but at least she was here. Few other would have gotten out of their bed on this hour for physical training.

As Harry walked over he couldn't help but think that robes where definitely one of the more stupider things wizardingkind had thought up. He had already knew that Alex was fairly attractive from the moment he had first laid eyes upon her, but now that he saw her out of robes and dressed in only a tank top and sweatpants that become even more obvious.

''Good morning!'' Harry greeted.

Alex's head shot up and her eyes went open fully and for a moment they looked disoriented before they settled on Harry and comprehension dawned on her face.

Alex snorted, ''There is nothing good about this morning.'' She muttered and Harry had to agree with that, especially considering he had slept even less than the day before, but he wasn't going to show that. Besides it was rather amusing to see her in this state.

''What's that for?'' Alex after a moment of silence as she pointed at the goblet.

''This?'' Harry questioned gesturing to the goblet with his off hand. "It's for you I thought you might need some Pepper up to get those eyes open.''

Alex grumbled, but took the offered potion and after one last suspicious glance at it she downed it one go. The effects were immediate as her stance visible straightened and the look of sleep in her eyes seem to disappear as steam came out of her ears. After that Harry used his wand to vanish the goblet and asked, ''Shall we?''

After running for ten minutes in silence Harry noted although Alex seemed to be easily keep pace with him her breathing had become slightly laboured

Deciding to take her mind off the running by asking a question he had been wondering about, Harry asked. ''So what is the story of our Headgirl?''

Alex glanced to the side and looked Harry in the eyes for a moment and he spotted something he couldn't immediately place; disappointment? But then the moment was gone and her gaze settled back to what was in front of her.

''Why do you want to know?'' She asked in a neutral tone.

''Well were I came from we had a Mr Blaise Zabini there not a Ms Blaise Zabini and definitely not a Blaise Zabini-Fudge.''

Alex actually stopped running at hearing this, ''Are you saying Zabini is a guy?''

Harry barked a laugh at hearing this. ''Well this one definitely isn't,'' before mentally adding, 'Well at least I hope she isn't. It would be really awkward if she turns out to be a guy under glamours' ''But yes the one I knew was a guy, arrogant bloke at that.''

Alex was sorely tempted to make a scratching comment about arrogant guys and certain in particular, but managed to show restrained and she started to run again.

''So what do you want to know about her? She and I aren't particular close so I don't know what exactly I can tell you.''

''What's up with the –Fudge part of her name?''

''Her mother married the minister a couple months ago. Shortly after that she was officially adopted by the man, but according from what I have heard she didn't want to give up her father's name so she became Zabini-Fudge.''

''Hn interesting ….'' Harry mused. He wasn't sure why, but he had the distinct feeling there was more to this marriage than met the eyes. The Zabini's while few in number had been purebloods who had both money and influence. They however hadn't been Death Eaters, but if they were in this universe then that would definitely be troublesome especially considering one of them is Mrs Fudge.

But to be honest Harry doubted it for one Dumbledore never once mentioned the Zabinis when Harry had directly asked for information and for another Blaise approach was all wrong. While yes it was a very good tactical decision for the Death Eaters to have one of their children try and befriend the boy-who-lived and see what kind of threat he might prove. Blaise's approach had just been too obvious to be a death eater plot.

''What about her ancestry? She isn't a full human is she?''

''There has been some rumours floating around, but nothing concrete. Why?'' Alex asked with a by now rather red face and considerable more laboured breathing. Considering they were only twenty minutes in their run this wasn't quite what Harry had hoped he would see at this point, but then again he had the feeling most of the students would have collapsed after only ten some maybe even after five.

Harry shrugged, ''She is the daughter of a woman who has direct influence on one of the most influential men in the county. Knowing a bit about her will give me some insight on her mother. Besides I assume you do understand what the significance is of the daughter and perhaps the wife of the minister being not completely human? A minister who heads a ministry who has shunned magical races for decades?''

To be honest Harry himself couldn't predict what would happen if that was true. Fudge had been a fool and was easily manipulated so the Death Eaters probably wouldn't want to replace him until they were ready to come into the open, but on the other hand doing nothing against a minister with a halfbreed wife/daughter wouldn't look good either.

Then there was Fudge himself to consider, regardless of his incompetence as a leader he did know how to survive in the political climate, but the question was would he try to save his own hide or would he try and protect his family?

The rest of the run was spend in relative silence and Harry had to admit that the girl had spirit if nothing else as even though it become clear it was getting difficult for her to keep up she never once complained.

XxX

Alex was not a happy person. No in fact she was questing her own sanity for not only waking up way and way to early, but also for doing this morning run thing … damn she thought she had a pretty decent stamina, but this was just too much, she was breathing heavily, her legs felt like they were one fire and even though she couldn't see it she was pretty sure her normally pale face was bright red.

But did she complain? Hell no, if Pot- Harry can do this while making it look easy then there was absolutely no way she was going to voice it out loud that she had problems. Speaking of the male she had been running behind it really started to frustrate her how she couldn't get a read on the guy.

Potter had been easy to describe; he was a selfish arrogant hypocritical bastard, simple, but Harry … he was more difficult to understand than her friend Astoria.

When she had first met him she had been too angry, to focused on the past to see him properly. She had just thought he was arrogant and had no idea what he was talking about, but then there was the duel… it had been a borderline humiliating experience for her. It was a duel with a young men barely a year older than her yet she had been so outclassed it wasn't even funny. And then instead of starting gloating like Potter would have he pointed out her flaws like he wanted her to improve … well at least that is what she has realised now at that time she just thought he thought that no matter how much she improved she wouldn't prove a threat.

After her humiliating defeat she had sought refuge in the Black library in search for a spell that would prove to that smug bastard she was someone he should take serious.

It didn't take her long to find a spell that was described to have great power and as soon as she deemed the spell good enough to use she went back to Potter manor to challenge Potter to a duel again.

The duel didn't go well … in fact it went far worse than the one before. She had nearly killed someone that day. Worse yet Potter hadn't batted an eye. He hadn't looked angry at her for firing the spell, nor had he looked even slightly fearful for coming close to death.

It had greatly unnerved her how he could react like that. She would have preferred that he had shouted at her, behaviour like that she could have handled, but the way he remained calm like that … it was perhaps then that while her heart wouldn't allow it yet her mind started to understand that the young man in front of her wasn't Potter she knew no he was the guy she would come to call Harry.

Of course her heart and mind didn't quite agree on that matter for some time … it wasn't until her best friend had talked to her that she started coming around. Oh don't get her wrong at that time he definitely was still Potter, but she was willing to give her a chance if only for Rose's sake.

So she had returned to Potter manor and had apologised, it hadn't been easy for her, but she understood it was necessary. It was also then, her first conversation with Potter with a relatively clear mind that she noticed his expressions were fake. It wasn't particular obvious at first, but then there had been that one true smile at hearing about the Weasley twins and then it became pretty obvious to her he was controlling what he was showing, most likely by using Occlumency.

She herself had some experience with the art, but she never particularly liked using it in that fashion … it always felt somewhat disconcerting to be disconnecting from her emotions like that. She always felt it was better to let one's anger out instead of supressing it like a true lady should (at least according to her mother), then again Harry had lived a different live than her, she wasn't pretty sure she would need to keep a tighter check on her emotions if she saw half what he had seen.

That conversation had also led to something else … Potter as her trainer. If anyone had told her she would request training from him even a hour before the actual request she would have declared them mad.

Her fist 'lesson' was not quite what she had expected. Seriously his instructions regarding silence casting were only slightly better than Snape's normal instructions during Potions lessons, but she did it, in only a few hours she actually managed to do it and while she never would admit it out loud his compliment … his non-mocking compliment was definitely appreciated.

That had been the day that both her heart and mind had agreed he no longer was Potter.

Of course thing hadn't been actually smooth sailing since then. His following lessons had been less than pleasant, then there was that time he Apparated out of the compartment while leaving her and Rose to deal with his fans, then there had been the matter of paying for training. At first she thought he meant it and was only doing it for the money, but when looking back she realised his answer had a deeper meaning. Then there was the matter of him asking about Blaise Zanabi, Hogwarts's local beauty queen ….

She was suddenly brought of her musings when she realised they had stopped moving and it took her a second longer to realise that they were standing before the entrance of her common room! How did a Gryffindor turned Hufflepuff know where her common room was? The instructions she had received as a first year had been clear … keep the location of our common room secret, especially from certain notorious pranksters. So how the hell did he knew?

After she voiced the question out loud she was rather annoyed when the young man in front of her only snorted.

''You're kidding right?'' Harry asked.

''No, I want to know why you where the entrance is as it supposed to be kept secret even from friends of other houses.''

Harry shook his head in disbelief. ''You are a fifth year and you don't know where the other common rooms are? I mean that was one of the worst kept secrets were I came from.''

''Where are they then?''

''Well the Ravenclaw one is obvious here … you have to solve a riddle to enter. The Gryffindor one is one the seventh floor guarded by the fat lady … you have to give a password to enter. Hufflepuff and Slytherin are in the dungeons both password protected. Slytherin is hidden by a false dead end wall and Hufflepuff is hidden behind another portrait this one almost opposite of the one that leads to the kitchen.''

As Alex listened one thought suddenly sprung up, 'Wait kitchen?'

XxX

After dropping Alex off at her common room and making sure she does the proper cool down exercises Harry made his way to his own dormitory and got ready for the day. After a long and hot shower Harry decided that he really didn't feel like a repeat of the day before so instead of making his way to the great hall he walked over to a nearby portrait of a fruit bowl and tickled the pear.

The moment he entered he was surrounded by a small army of overly excited house elves which made Harry briefly wonder what was worse; these little hyperactive guys or being surrounded by people who although left him alone kept staring at him.

It didn't take long for Harry to come up with the answer … two minutes later and seated at a small table filled with food Harry could only conclude one thing …. Those guys were much better.

As he ate he remembered one of the things he during the sorting ceremony had added to his mental to do list. He initially was going to ask a ghost about it, but those guys swarming around him, probably knew more about the castle than even the Fred and George had. As such he asked the closest elf he saw. ''Hey, you wouldn't happen to know anything about Ravenclaw hidden room would you?''

XxX

'Now what did he say?' Harry thought as he stood in a certain corridor on the seventh floor. 'Walk past the room three times while thinking about what you want to appear right?'

After a moment of indecision Harry decided he had little no nothing to lose so he just did it. He quickly walked three times past the spot where the door should appear while thinking about that he needed a place to hide something as that was what the elf had used in his example of how the room worked.

To his surprise and delight an actual door appeared. After drawing his wand he cautiously opened the door. Once he could look in this new room Harry could only think one thing, 'Holly hell!'

The reasons for this particular thought was that the 'room' Harry had just entered was easily the size of the great hall and was filled with all kinds of things, ranging from stacks of books to broken furniture.

'Even if some off this stuff is broken, this must be easily worth a small fortune.' Harry thought with a calculating look before something caught his eyes. Standing there only a couple of meters away was something Harry didn't expect to see ever again.

''The mirror of Erised.'' Harry said with a hint of awe.

XxX

''Harry, mate!''

Said person was brought out of his turbulent thoughts that had swirled in his mind since his visit to the newly discovered Room of Requirements. After glancing to the side the voice came from, Harry had to surpass a groan. 'Of all the times he could choose to appear he had to do it with my mind in the state it is now?' Of course to be fair this was the first seventh year class that Harry had attended so he shouldn't be so surprised.

''Ron.'' Harry tone greeted back in a rather neutral to the counterpart of one of his closest friends. The boy looked roughly the same as the one he remembered; slightly taller and dressed in better robes (a reward for obtaining head-boy perhaps?), but other than that he looked exactly the same.

''Harry mate, where have you been this whole time?'' Ron nearly exclaimed, ''We have so much to discuss, Ginny wants to see you, what were you doing with Black? How could you get sorted in the house of the duffers? Cant Dumbledore get you out? No wait of course he can, he is Dumbledore. Harry? Harry?''

Harry stared a bit dumbfounded at the mini-tirade the youngest Weasley male was given. He had made it clear at the sorting that he was not their Harry Potter hadn't he? And since when can Ron talk on the speed level of Hermione?

Luckily for Harry the charms professor decided to take that moment to start the lesson and Ron although seemingly somewhat reluctant turned his attention to the part-goblin.

What followed was a half hour long lecture on the importance of the N.E. exams It was somewhat interesting for Harry as although he had heard the term O.W.L and .T in passing it was never completely clear to Harry what their importance was. If he understood correctly then you can get a job with only O. , but only low paying jobs similar to Muggles who only have a high school degree. N.E. on the other hand were far more important as according to Flitwick having an acceptable for a N.E.W.T. is better than an outstanding for O.W.L.

After that Flitwick used the rest of the lesson to go over the curriculum for their final year and took his time to answer any question the class filled with the four houses might have.

This suited Harry just fine as he seriously had too much on his mind to pay attention to a real lesson. He knew he shouldn't have looked, but his curiosity overrode his common sense. He just wished he hadn't; knowledge may be power, but sometime ignorance is a bliss.

XxX

The lesson had ended and it looked like Ron wanted to talk to Harry again, but he really didn't feel like another tirade so he quickly said that lunch was about to start and that he wanted to talk with the professor for a moment.

It seems that the person he was speaking to was still very similar, as Ron quickly left the room. Either unable to resist the call of food or not wanting to spend any more additional time with a teacher.

''You wanted to speak with me Mr Potter?'' The charms professor asked after Harry approached his desk.

Harry nodded, ''Yes, professor.'' He said, ''Professor Sprout told me all four heads of houses were informed about me.''

''That's correct, Mr Potter,'' The professor confirmed while wondering what this was all about.

''Then … I have a request to make.''

XxX

Harry Potter was not amused. Why? You may wonder The answer to that question was sitting opposite of him.

''I must really insist Mr Potter.'' The woman and Harry used that term loosely insisted.

The 'woman' *couch* toad *couch* sitting in front of Harry was none other than his DADA teacher. Harry had just finished one of his most useless and boring DADA lessons ever. A fact that on some level was quite impressive considering who taught him the subject in his first two years.

Well to be honest in terms of uselessness she and Lockhart were more or less equal. One told his class mostly fictional stories and the other had the class read a book where the proper defence to an attack was described as: don't make any threating moves, try to calm the aggressor down and if that fails contact the Auror department.

So yeah both lessons were completely useless, but at least Lockhart's were semi-interesting or at least semi-interesting compared to spending the entire lesson reading a book that was written in such a style that even Binns would probably find it boring.

The reasons for his current annoyance however was not the two hours he completely wasted, no he had spent more than enough time with teachers who were useless that he really couldn't feel annoyed anymore that Dumbledore had yet again failed to hire someone competent. The reasons for his annoyance however was that this Umbridge woman had asked him to stay behind as she wanted to talk with him.

Well to be technically true this was not the true reason. The true reasons happened five minutes after he had agreed and was invited into her office.

The woman in front of him kept insisting that he drink something! Now he may be no 'mad eye' in terms of paranoia, but if this didn't scream suspicious then he didn't know what did.

Knowing he wasn't going to win a contest of wills and that he could hardly accuse her of something without some proof Harry decided to relent for now and answered, ''Some tea then if you insist.''

Umbridge gave what seemed to be her patented creepy grin and stood up before moving toward a nearby table where tea-set was standing on and started preparing it with her back shielding what she was doing from Harry's eyes. That is if Harry had normal eyes. After quickly activating his magical eye and closing his normal one, Harry saw that Umbridge had poured something from a vial into one of the cups.

'Bloody amateur,' Harry thought as he quickly drew his wand and before Umbridge had even time to pick up the cups let alone have the time to turn around Harry had fired a stunner which impacted seconds later, resulting in her crumbling down to the ground.

Moving quickly Harry fired a locking and a privacy charm at the door and then made his move over to Umbridge. He then picked up the vial still in the woman's hand and studied it for a moment before giving it a sniff.

''Don't tell me that bitch actually wanted …'' Harry muttered with a frown on his face.

He moved her to one of the wall and placed her in a sitting position, then he forced her mouth open and poured three drops of the vial in her month before muttering a counter curse to his stunning spell. When she came to her face was slack and her gaze unfocused.

''Truth potion …'' Harry muttered. This bitch actually wanted to give him truth potion! Harry had to close his eyes as anger raged through his veins. Two simple words and he would never have to see the woman who dared to attack him like that again, but his rational mind stopped. It knew that regardless of how incompetent most of the Auror corp was the death of the undersecretary of the current minister of magic would now doubt result in the Auror elites swarming Hogwarts and they weren't incompetent enough to miss that Harry would be the last one to see her.

As Harry reigned his emotions back under control he realised that a perfect opportunity had arisen. He had a high ranking ministry employee under truth serum right in front of him … it was time for some information gathering.

''Why did you try and feed me truth potion?'' He asked.

''To find about any secret you might have.'' The woman replied in a mono-tone.

Harry frowned at hearing this and decided to question further. ''Why do you want to know those secrets?''

''The minister wants your loyalty, depending on your answers I either would blackmail you to make sure you remain loyal or if you don't have any secrets I can use I would have used the knowledge I obtained from you in some other way that would make sure you wouldn't be a threat for the minister.''

''Does the minister know you are doing this?''

''He knows that I will try gaining your loyalty for him, but he doesn't know the exact plans.''

''Do you have any other plans regarding me?''

''No definite ones.''

''Is Blaise Zanabi-Fudge involved with any of your plans?''

For a moment it seems Umbridge actually showed a hint of distaste and Harry wondered if the potion was already started to stop working as the potion shouldn't allow this, but then it was gone and the professor spoke up again with the same emotionless tone. ''The half-breed isn't involved with any plans of mine.''

'Interesting,' Harry thought before asking the next question. ''Is Voldermort dead?''

''The dark lord is dead, yes.''

'Dark lord? Not he-who-must-be-named' Harry thought. ''Do you believe in pure-blood supremacy?''

''Yes,''

Harry sighted, one of the highest ranking ministry employees was a bigot … great… just great.

XxX

Information swirled through Harry's head as he exited the DADA classroom. After the question about her beliefs Harry had continued questioning her and he now knew quite a bit off useful things and a couple of things he really didn't need to know. The vial of what he now knew was Veritaserum, the strongest truth potion was also in his pocket.

After he was done with the questioning he had replaced her memory of the interrogation with one where she broke the vial of truth potion and where Harry had quickly been excused after a short conversation about what he thought about the current DADA course.

Harry didn't like using memory charms. In fact he hated using magic to mess with one's mind, but she couldn't be allowed to remember the meeting and he unfortunately couldn't kill her.

Then suddenly he heard someone approach him and judging by the sound that person was running, Instincts bred in battle kicked in and his wand was in his hand seconds later, he spun around and came near face to face with what his mind identified as 'Prewett spawn'

Instincts worked faster than his mind ever could and before he could stop himself a green beam of light came out of his wand and impacted the female redhead and catapulted her backwards.

'Well …' Harry mentally began.

''Mr Potter!'' A furious looked Minerva McGonagall strode over from the other side of the corridor, wand in her hand and a look of pure fury on her face.

'' … Shit.'' He finished out loud.

* * *

**Author notes**

No Daphne in this chapter sorry, I had the meeting completely written out, but it just didn't fit so I deleted it. She definitely won't appear in the next chapter, but she should make her first appearance in chapter 13.

**About pairing: **Okay so I have received several reviews and PMs asking about the pairing and I have decided to clarify things a bit. First of there are four main character (even though FF sometime only show two) the main characters are Harry (the **main** main character), (fem)Blaise, Daphne and OC (Alex). The story will mostly follow Harry and each of those three girl will have their own impact on his life. One of them will most likely end up with him. Which one of the three? Honestly I am not sure. All three are for all intend and purposes OCs so I decided to wait on deciding on a pairing until I have written a bit about each of the three potential love interests (to let them feel more real in my head). Most likely the first bits of romance won't be until Christmas.

**Next chapter: Riddle and Runes**


	12. Riddle and Runes

**Chapter 12: Riddle and Runes**

It was Sunday morning and with sunrise still several hours away most people were currently still enjoying the warmth of their beds. Of course there are always exceptions and one of those exceptions is Harry Potter.

Now considering that he had gotten up earlier than most of his fellow students for the last week to go running this shouldn't be so surprising. Today he didn't get up however to run. In fact he wasn't even in the castle.

Currently Harry was sitting cross-legged on the ground roughly a hundred meters away from a large manor. He was hidden away from the world by one of his first presents ever received, the invisibility cloak he had inherited from his father.

Harry sighted as he slightly adjusted his seated position. The manor he was currently staring at was Nott manor, the ancestral home of the Notts and current home of Nott Sr. Nott had been an a inner circle Death Eater in his universe and while he couldn't confirm that Nott was one here he had managed to confirm that Nott had bribed Fudge several times.

So while he hadn't managed to confirm it Harry had a very strong suspicion this Nott was also a Death Eater so he had decided to use him for the next part of his 'Lord Riddle plan'. Macnair was still unconscious so Harry couldn't confirm if the man had indeed relayed his warning, but even if he had it would clearly not be taken serious if he remained idle. So Harry decided it was time to add some pressure and that was why he was here.

Luckily for Harry shortly after his arrival it became rather obvious that Nott was indeed a Death Eater. This was because the moment he approached the wards, he felt something he hadn't felt in a while, but was still was rather easy to identify; A dark mark identification ward.

The basic idea of the ward was both simple yet ingenious in Harry's opinion.

Normal wards are usually active against everyone that aren't keyed in. This was also one of the reasons why places like Hogwarts and the ministry while having rather formidable wards usually have several wards down unless an emergency situation. After all it is rather tedious to add each and every visitor that wants to enter and remove him after the person leaves.

That is why the dark mark identification ward was so indigenous. Basically instead of having to key in each and every one off your allies in, the ward caused that everyone bearing the mark that only Voldemort could give, would be seen as a friendly. The additional benefit was that now Voldemort had safe houses for all his Death Eaters without having to reveal the names of his followers.

Unfortunately for Voldemort he had underestimated the intelligence department employed by the Elder Council. They had managed to 'crack' how the ward worked. In basic words they had found a way to manipulate the ward in such a way that the ward would think the caster also bore the dark mark.

The process how to do this was one of the few things the Elder council had deemed necessary to be taught to the militia. Or to be more exact it was taught to the team leaders who were supposed to teach it to his or her squid.

They had managed to land several devastating attacks on Death Eater stronghold until Voldemort apparently wised up as the ward was removed from all know Death Eater homes. In Harry's opinion they had lucked out due to the fact that Voldemort was so mistrusting of others. If the Death Eaters had used the Fidelius Charm to hide their homes and strongholds then they would have been screwed, but fortunately a person can only be a secret keeper of one secret and as Voldemort wasn't the most trusting of persons he didn't allow any of his assets to put under a charm that could potentially be used as a safe house for deserting followers.

Of course considering the fact that here the war hadn't started yet and the dark mark identification ward hadn't proven faulty yet the ward was still there for Harry to exploit.

The only real problem was that the process of 'fooling' the ward was an extremely lengthy one and as such Harry was already sitting in this exact same position for the last hour and it probably would take another half hour to finish.

The vexing thing in Harry's opinion was that the actual wards weren't even that strong. With the aid of the elder wands he could probably overpower the wards in ten minutes tops, but the moment he would start to do that the owner of the wards would no doubt be informed and he could floo the DMLE before Harry could breach the wards and that was not something Harry wanted. In fact if all things went according to plan Nott would never know what hit him.

As his spell work and wand movements went on auto-pilot his mind reflected back on the rather eventual first week at Hogwarts. The first thing that came to his mind was the meeting in the Headmaster's office after his laps of control after his first DADA lesson.

XxX

_Harry was not pleased and he himself was the cause of that displeasure. He could barely believe how much of a hypocrite he had acted. He had made that big speech that he was not the Harry Potter they knew and what does he do the first time he sees an very unwelcome face? He sends a borderline dark curse at her._

_Of course in his defence he hadn't had the greatest day, with waking up after another nightmare, seeing the Mirror of Errised and meeting that bitch of a DADA teacher, but still he should have better control than that. Even if the girl he cursed was the counterpart of the one partial responsible for the death of Jamie._

_He was suddenly brought out of his musings when the sound of music reached his ears. It was beautiful yet sounded completely unnatural and Harry only knew one creature that could make sound like that. _

_His thoughts were proven true when a beautiful bird landed on his knees. Fawkes, the phoenix was staring him right in the eyes, never once stopping it's song that supposedly brought courage to the good and instilled fear in the evil ones. _

_Harry didn't practically felt braver nor fearful. If he had to call the effects of the song anything he would describe it as feeling content. Like the weight of the world was removed from his shoulder and there was only the here and now. _

_Harry briefly mussed what he was if he didn't feel anything bad from the song. He was no saint. He had killed and tortured. He may have done it for freedom, but the satisfaction he felt when he saw the light leave eyes of the likes of Severus Snape was definitely not something a good person does. Then again a good person also doesn't leave a one year old baby on the doorsteps of Muggles who hate everything freakish and doesn't check on that person for over a decade._

_Harry was once again broken out of his thoughts when a voice broke the silence in the office after a new person joined the room._

''_How is she Poppy?'' Dumbledore asked from his position behind his desk, flanking him, both wearing looks of displeasure were the heads of the _Gryffindor _and the Slytherin house, Minerva _McGonagall _and Severus Snape._

''_She is stable, headmaster.'' The Hogwarts nurse replied. ''I want to keep her for the night as a precaution, but there shouldn't be any problems.''_

_The headmaster nodded and dismissed the local healer before turning to Harry, ''Care to explain what happened Mr Potter?''_

''_Instincts,'' Harry replied._

''_Instincts?'' Snape drawled. _

''_Instincts.'' Harry confirmed._

''_Care to elaborate?'' McGonagall asked._

'_Not really,' Harry thought, but knew he couldn't get away with that attitude or at least not now. ''I had just a DADA lesson and the professor asked me to stay behind. She asked several questions I for obvious reasons couldn't answer. She became rather unpleasant, borderline hostile. Eventually she realised I want going to tell her anything and let me go. At that point … well I wouldn't say I felt threatened, but it was close. And then Pre- Ms Weasley came running at me and my body reacted to what it perceived as threat.''_

_Dumbledore looked thoughtful for a moment before asking, ''So it is because you felt threatened by professor Umbridge that you lashed out at your fellow student?''_

_Harry shook his head, ''No not exactly … you have fought in wars right? You know that in the middle of battle you don't have the time to overanalyse everything and you just go in a certain state of mind, One where you use the instincts you gained due to experience to fight? That is what happened. The conversation caused me to fall back to that state of mind and then I saw the counterpart of an old enemy and like I said I reacted.''_

_Dumbledore clearly didn't expect that last part, although he had been nodding along with the first part of Harry's explanation. ''You are saying Ms Weasley was your enemy? Somehow I found that hard to believe. The Weasley family has always been a family loyal to the light, quite similar to your own in fact.''_

_Harry's neutral face turned stony as he replied. ''Well there are always a couple of rotten eggs in every family aren't they. Besides both she and her mother were stripped of the name after their crime was discovered.''_

''_Ah that must be why you referred to Mrs Weasley as Prewett when we first met,'' Dumbledore commented in such a tone as if he solved one of great riddles of the universe. ''Might I ask what crime she had committed for such harsh punishment to occur.'' _

''_She is a murderer.'' Harry replied truthfully and for that short moment he spoke all his emotional control was gone. His face was a mask of anger and his voice was filled with venom._

_For a moment three faces looked stunned at Harry. Both Snape and Dumbeldore managed to mask their shock in seconds by bringing up their masks of indifference and smiling kind old man, but the Transfiguration teacher didn't have that control and that was clear to all to see._

''_And who exactly did the Weasley brat kill?'' Snape drawled. "One of your little friends perhaps? Good riddance I say.''_

_Harry's brow twitched at hearing this and was about ready to pull his wand out and give this Snape the exact treatment he had given to his counterpart, but then he saw that Dumbledore unlike McGonagall who had admonished Snape for his langue was staring intensely at him and he came to a realisation._

'_That bastard is testing me!' Harry thought in anger. First Fawkes and then letting Snape's comment slide in favour of observing me._

_Relax, Harry close your eyes and breath …. in and out …. in and out …. in and out …. in and out … cut it all off. When he opened his eye it was cold and emotionless. He stared at Snape for a moment and while the hatred was still there he could control himself. He was not going to lose control again for the second time the day and especially not in front of who could be his most useful ally or one of his worst enemy. _

_That didn't mean Snape would get off scot free. No the man would suffer for his comment, but not now, not in the open like this. That didn't mean he couldn't make a dig at the man of course._

''_I can see why you trust him so much, headmaster. His caring nature toward students must inspire a great deal of trust.''_

_This time Snape's brow twitched and Harry knew that if it wasn't him then the man would never have allowed himself to show such emotion, but from his talks with Rose Harry knew that even though James Potter was still alive the petty man in front of him still had taken out his anger on the two Potter children. Truly a pitiful excuse of a man._

''_Why you arrogant …'' Snape began as he started to reach for were Harry knew the man kept his wand. _

_Unfortunately for Harry Dumbledore stopped Snape before Harry could retaliate in 'self-defence'. ''Severus, control yourself.'' The old man said in very serious tone and with narrowed eyes._

'_And there it is,' Harry thought as he felt the subtle power that Dumbledore emitted. For all his flaws Dumbledore was without a doubt a powerhouse and it was in times like this when the emotions were running high and the man didn't kept a tight check on his magic that he felt it … the power of the man who had beaten an elder wand bearer. This was probably the main reason why Harry would never openly go against Dumbledore as long as _Voldemort _was still out there. The power and influence the old man wielded was not something Harry wanted directed at him at least not as long as a man even stronger was out there. Then again for all his power Dumbledore tended to have his moments gullibility, so as long as he didn't do anything to openly against Dumbledore's believes he probably would get away with it. _

_Snape was visibly cowed and turned his head away from the intense gaze the headmaster had directed towards him. ''And Harry please don't provoke the professor like that,'' He said in a more gentle, but still with a hint of scolding in it. ''And I can assure you I have complete trust in him.''_

_Harry nodded and replied in what he hoped was a diplomatic tone. ''Of course,'' He said before adding. ''This is after all still a free country. You are free to choose who you trust just like I am free to choose whom I trust.''_

''_Of course … of course.'' Dumbledore agreed, ''Freedom of choice if very important, but don't forget Harry, he is a teacher and shout be treated with the respect that comes with the position.'' _

''_He is a teacher,'' Harry admitted, ''Not my teacher, but a teacher still. On the other hand he also bears the mark of madman on his forearm. That alone makes it very hard to respect him.''_

''_Everyone deserves a second chance, Harry.'' _

"_Of course everyone deserves a second chance,'' Harry agreed making Dumbledore smile genuinely. That is until Harry continued. ''But that is what prison if for isn't it? To protect society from criminals and show criminals that their actions have repercussions so that they won't go wrong again when they are released.'' _

_Dumbledore's eyes darkened as he said in a more serious tone, ''If I can help it no human will have to get close to those foul creature.'' _

_Harry had to concede a point there. There were very few people out there he would like to see spend their life with the Dementors. Azkaban was yet another example of the hypocrisy of the wizarding world. Casting a Cruciatus curse, a torture curse that brings intense pain, will get you sentenced for life if you don't have the money or connection to get out. On the other hand no one seems to care that criminals get tortured in their own head and most go insane in a matter of weeks. _

''_I agree that Dementors are a bit excessive for most criminals, but how do you expect people to change if they aren't shown they are wrong?'' _

''_I think we are getting a bit of-topic here.'' McGonagall interjected before Dumbledore could answer. _

''_Ah yes … Mr Potter do you have anything to add to your earlier statement?''_

_Harry nodded, ''Firstly I regret I lost control like that.'' Harry said truthfully. He still couldn't bring himself to care that he had attacked her, but the fact that he did it without planning it and worse yet get caught he definitely did regret. "Like I said it mostly happened due to professor Umbridge rather hostile manners. Next lesson I will be better prepared mentally and I repeat of this will not happen.'' _

_There he showed regret (although probably not the kind Dumbledore wanted) and even said that he will do better what more would he want?_

_Dumbledore nodded, ''That is good. And I can understand what you are going through; both after the war with Grindelwald and Voldermort I have seen many good people suffer the same problems you are currently experiencing. If you ever want to talk about it know that both I and each of my staff will always there for you.''_

_Harry gave a nod understanding, expectedly ignored Snape's muttering of 'not bloody likely' and replied. ''Of course I appreciate the offer.'' Not that he would ever actually do it, but he could hardly say that now could he? _

''_Considering the circumstances I have decided not to deduct any points,'' Dumbledore began before he had to give Snape a stern look to shut him up as he clearly did not agree with the decision. When Snape looked away again Dumbledore continued. ''However as you yourself pointed out. Punishment is necessary to prevent for a person to learn what is wrong. As such although no points will be deducted you will serve a detention and you will have to apologise to Ms Weasley.''_

'_Smart,' Harry thought, 'Using my own words against me. If I protest now then I am contradicting myself, resulting in loss of credibility. Besides a single detention wasn't that bad as long as it wasn't with Snape and apologising to 'her'? No problem; lying with a straight face really isn't that hard and as long as it the confrontation doesn't happen out of the blue like the one after the DADA lesson then he should be able to keep his emotions in check.'_

''_I understand professor,'' Harry said. ''When and with who will I serve my detention?'' _

_Dumbledore's eyes twinkled extra brightly as he replied. ''You will be assisting professor Potter's O.W.L. class that is on Monday after lunch.''_

'_That manipulative son of a bitch,' Harry thought. He hadn't even considered that angle. Oh well too late to back down now and it is only a single detention. _

''_I understand Headmaster,'' Harry replied, allowing the man himself to interpreted just how much he understood._

_XxX_

Meanwhile back in the present Harry had made some progress, but it would still take some time before he could move on undetected. So he continued reflecting on his week.

He had apologised to 'her' … well sort off. Immediately after he left the headmaster's office he had headed toward the infirmary. Once he was there he was told that the redheaded girl was still under pain-relieving potions and therefore probably wouldn't be all the way there. Oh well not his problem he said he would apologise, nothing more, nothing less.

So after walking up to her bed he said in a loud enough of voice that the matron could hear him. ''I am sorry,'' He then lowered his voice drastically as added. ''That you are such a foolish girl that even though you knew what happened to me you thought it was a good idea to run up to me like that.''

Having said those words he turned around and left the wing in a quick stride.

The days following his meeting with Dumbledore were hardly as eventful. He kept doing his morning runs with Alex, taking that time to quiz her about her knowledge. Unfortunately he found that her level of DADA education was even worse than his had been at the start of his fifth year. While both had two competent and two incompetent teachers in their four years. Alex had the bad luck that her competent teachers were in her first two years. Years were nothing to useful is covered. After all not even the fake 'mad eye' would have gotten away with showing unforgivables to a bunch of eleven and twelve year olds.

Harry also had the additional benefit that he had been one of the tri-wizard champions. In hindsight he should have studied a lot more considering just how deadly the tournament was, but regardless of that he had still studied considerable more in the DADA compartment that his year mates (except maybe Hermione).

Alex also didn't seem to like Ginny too much, as the first thing she asked when he saw her the morning after the incident was to ask if it was true and after that she wanted a detailed rapport. He had told her that yes it had happened, but if she wanted to know what exactly had happened she had to show him she could use her magic to summon her wand to her hand.

Considering that very few learn how to do magic wandlesly and even fewer do it without anyone instructing them it was highly doubtful she would succeed, but she seemed that she really wanted the information … so who knows?

Alex hadn't been the only one who had wanted to know about it. Heck between the incident and now it seems half the school had come and ask about the incident. Okay it was more like groups of students would approach him and only one spoke, but still a large amount of students came.

To prevent people thinking bad about him. Harry gave them a slightly altered version of what he told Dumbledore. Umbridge was not popular so they could understand his reaction to her and instead of saying he was a Voldermort-war survivor he just told them the same things he had told his dorm mates; the fact that he had fought in a Goblin rebellion.

Overall his reputation didn't suffer much due to the incident. The Hufflepuffs sided with their dorm mate on principle, the Ravenclaw were fascinated by the differences between the universes, the Slytherins were happy he had temporary taken out one of the Gryffindor Quidditch players and the Gryffindors themself 'forgave' him because the attack was something that was done due fighting in war which apparently was 'cool'. It was almost painful for Harry to see all those people act like their house stereotype. There were a couple exceptions of course, but most seemed like they never had heard of the word individualism.

On Wednesday he used his free day to explore the Room of requirements. The first thing he done was cover the mirror of Erised; he really didn't need to see it right now. After that he had ordered Toby to bring some order into chaos and move things so that things similar stood together.

The result … a lot of junk broken beyond repair even with the aid of magic stuffed into one of the corners, a couple of bookcases filled with books that really shouldn't be kept in the vicinity of children. Most of those were dark art related books, but there were also a couple of books about magic that was far above the level of an average Hogwarts students. Some of those were about skills that were rather dangerous when tried if you were too unskilled. There were also a couple of books that deserved the adult rating for a different reason and most of those had rather suspicious stains. Harry wasted no time to throw those with the other junk.

Other than that there was a lot of furniture. Most of it wasn't enchanted in any way so they should be easily be sellable in both worlds. A large number of brooms was also collected, a good portion looked even worse than the school brooms, but some looked pretty nice. Harry wasn't too knowledgeable in brooms so he wasn't sure if they were worth anything considering that they were pretty old. But who knows? Maybe there is someone out there who collects old brooms? He could always place an advertisement in the daily profit if there weren't any stores that bought them. Other than that there was a diverse assortment of other things, most didn't seem to valuable, but he would hold on to it until he could be certain.

After having taking stock what was in the room, Harry started to experiment what the limits of the room was. The first thing he had noticed was regardless of how powerful the room was it was still bound to the laws of magic and as such couldn't do things as conjure food.

The other thing he noticed was that from the outside you could open any 'room' and from the inside you could change it to your leisure. Harry hadn't the faintest idea how exactly it worked, but it seemed from what he gather you could create an infinite amount of 'rooms' within the RoR. Harry quickly used this by pacing thrice in front of the yet unseen door while thinking. 'I want a personal storage room specifically for Harry Potter.'

The room he had entered was large but empty as Harry had expected. He then had left the room and had returned to the room of hidden things. There he had shrunken the bookcases and had taken him with him. He then had summoned his own personal storage room again and dumped the bookcases there and enlarged them.

He then left the room again and summoned the room of hidden things again. There he confirmed that the books really were gone from the room. After that he left and summoned up his own personal room and saw to his satisfaction that the books were still there.

Harry was very pleased by this as although everyone apparently could access the room of requirements as long as you didn't know the exact requirements you couldn't enter specific rooms. The only real problem was that Harry hadn't the faintest idea how this room worked and thus didn't particularly trust it. The only real place in Hogwarts he would trust to be a safe storage room would be the Chamber of Secrets, but until he knew for certain what happened to this universe Marauders map, he was very reluctant to enter. After all if anyone saw him disappear from the map from the girls bathroom then he probably would have to answer some very uncomfortable.

On Friday he had his first lesson of cultural education and in his opinion it was one of the most ridicules lessons ever. The lesson was held in the great hall and was mandatory for everyone to attend. It took Harry only five minutes to discover that this was nothing more than a long pure-blood propaganda speech. Another five minutes later and Harry was convicted whoever thought it was a good idea to give a four hour lesson to all the students at the same time was the biggest idiot ever. There was serious no discipline at all. A lot of students were just talking with their neighbours and some were using this time to do their homework. The only ones who were somewhat paying attention were the first years and most of them looked like they were wondering if they could get away with not paying attention like their upperclassman. After the first hour had ended the attention span of most of the first years had long since wavered and by then no one was really paying attention anymore to the man preaching about the importance of traditions and the dangers of change.

Harry himself had continued to listen to the preaching man throughout the entire lecture. Not because he found it interesting, no it was because this reeked of Voldemort influence and Harry was very curious just what he was trying to do. So far he wasn't too worried. The preaching man was nearly as boring as Binns and no one seems to pay his words much heed, but if he was replaced by a competent speaker then who know what that person can do to the Hogwarts students body, which is notorious for its sheep mentality.

On Saturday Harry had his meeting with professor Babbling. The eccentric witch had quizzed him extensively on third and fourth year Ancient Runes knowledge. After three hours she seemed somewhat satisfied, but still gave him the titles of several books and told him to read them. She then asked him if he had any questions. Not one to waste an opportunity Harry spun a bullshit story about reading a Rune book that describe certain things he didn't understood. In reality that 'book' was the notes and the diary he had received from Dumbledore, but he rather not ask directly for help like that.

Babbling had smiled knowingly at him and he knew she saw straight through his lie, but luckily for him she didn't comment on it and she started a lengthy explanation about the subject along with mentioning several reference books.

By the time the time for the evening meal came around, Harry's head was spinning with new information and yet he had barely made a dent in the knowledge required for the ritual.

Seemingly as if reading his mind (she didn't he might not be the most accomplished Occlumency user, but he would have felt it) the professor said. ''If you have any more questions, Mr Potter, then you can come back next week at the same time.''

After a moment thought Harry nodded and agreed.

XxX

Back in the present, Harry stood up stiffly, he was finally done and it was time to get moving. After making sure that the Deadly Hallow was still firmly covering him, Harry quickly made his way to the door.

To his slight disappointment Harry couldn't even detect the slightest hint of magic coming from the door. That arrogant bastard apparently believed no one could get past his wards. Harry, wand drawn cautiously opened the door and entered what he assumed to be the entrance hall.

Then suddenly a distinct pop sound was heard and a house-elf was standing in front of him. ''Welcome to …'' The elf began, but then noticed that no one was there which was weird considering that the wards had informed him that someone deemed friendly had entered the premise and then the door had been opened …

Harry chose that moment to fire a near point blank stunning spell at the wide eyed elf; resulting in the elf slumping to the ground.

He then used his fake eye to scan the entire manor. He saw several things of interest, but his primary reason for being her was in a bed in a room two floors up. After making his way over to that room as silently as possible, Harry opened the door and stunned the still sleeping man. Harry then pulled two items out of his pocket, a sharp looking knife and a shrunken bottomless trunk.

He then used his magical eye to scan the house again, specifically paying attention to all those valuable looking things. He then glanced at the stunned Nott and sighted. ''This is going to take some time.'' He muttered.

XxX

It was busy like always in Diagon Alley with most people constantly moving around. One of the people in the allay was not moving. That person was dressed in hood and cloak and had been leaning against a building for the last couple of hours.

The person was slowly chewing on the blood pop in its mouth and wore a slightly thoughtful expression on its face. It had already been a week since the assignment received by the Elder had started and process was slow. Sure it had been easy to find out that both targets attended Hogwarts, but to get in, accomplish the assignment and get out undetected would be far harder.

The cloaked person was pulled from it's thought when a large commotion seem to happen near the Apparition point.

Glancing in the direction of the commotion, the person noticed that the cause of the commotion was another person who was also wearing a hooded cloak. The person's face was also obscured by some kind of illusion as it only showed blood-red eyes.

The reason for the commotion was because the hooded person had thrown a naked man face-first on the ground and then coldly said. ''Disgrace.''

Using it's superior eyesight the blood pop chewing person noticed that someone, most likely the man who had called him a disgrace had carved a message in the man's back.

_Followers of the false heir beware. You did not head my first warning. This will be your second and last warning. Leave the service of the fake or become the enemy of the one true heir of Slytherin, Lord Riddle. _

The observing hooded person chuckled at reading that. The message lacked a bit in certain departments, but it was still amusing. The person then moved its attention back to other hooded person. The illusion obscuring it's face was pretty good, but a disciplined mind could definitely see trough, so slowly, but surely things the illusion had been obscuring became more clearer. He was definitely male … a fake eye and a rather prominent scar … a normal emerald green eye …. A lightning bolt scar on the forehead … Harry Potter, the primary target of the mission was standing there.

And then suddenly he disappeared, Apparting to who knows where.

One of the bystanders, wearing a lime-green robe with a crossed bone and wand on his back approached the still downed man and cast a spell on him and after several seconds he exclaimed. ''He is alive!''

He then turned the man around (resulting in several mothers shielding their children eyes.) and was about to cast more diagnostic spells when he noticed something on his arm which made him take several steps back. ''Th- the dark mark!'' He exclaimed even louder than before.

Those three words definitely caused a reaction … people screamed, some fainted and most ran away. Within ten minutes the entire allay was almost entirely deserted … all caused by a stunned naked man with a tattoo.

The hooded person, one of the few remaining conscious people in the allay chuckled loudly as a large grin spread on its face. 'Oh this is definitely an interesting twist!'

XxX

One Alexandra Black was not a happy person. No not happy at all. First she had gotten up early for her daily run with Harry and then he didn't show up. She had waited for twenty minutes! Okay her eyes might have closed once or twice so the time past a bit faster, but still!

After twenty minutes she just decided to run on her own. She could always chew him out for not showing up when she saw him. Unfortunately things didn't go much better after that. Only five minutes in her run she encountered Peeves. Not once with her runs with Harry she encountered anyone and yet after only five minutes running alone she encountered Peeves … who had she pissed off in a past life to deserve this?

But then something strange happened, instead of doing things like normally does a.k.a. things she really did not want to handle this early in the morning, he had looked at her with something akin to curiosity before exclaiming, ''The master's little fried!''

That had definitely been weird and weird was not something she could handle well before her first cup of coffee so she did what any sane person did when they encountered the unpredictable Peeves while he was making less sense than normal, she turned around and hightailed it out of there.

Unfortunately due to her distracted state of mind she forgot to jump over one of the fake steps as she descended the stairs. Merlin! She had been lucky that she had managed to grasp the railing otherwise the resulting fall would have hurt like hell.

The only good thing was that Peeves for some reason hadn't decided not to follow, he probably would have laughed his ass off due to her little manoeuvre.

The rest of the run had gone relatively uneventful, but she had noticed her arm had started to hurt a little ever since she had to use it to catch herself. She hoped it would go away soon as the try-outs for the Quidditch team would probably be next week and she really did not want to lose her Seeker starter position. Sure Madam Pomfrey could fix whatever it was in a matter of seconds, but the woman tended to be a tad overbearing so she would rather try and avoid the infirmary, especially so early in the year.

After finishing her run she took a very lengthy shower, letting the hot water wash away any stress she felt. If there was one benefit for getting up so early it was definitely that she could take as long as she wanted under the shower.

After getting ready for the day Alex had made her way over to the great hall for breakfast and hopefully to see Harry and demand to know why he wasn't there.

Unfortunately her recently revived good mood turned sour when just before entering the hall she was confronted by non other than Ginny Weasley. Alex had known Ginny for years and as both were regular visitors to Potter manor she had to see and interact with the girl more than she cared for. To put it lightly she didn't care much for the redhead. Even though she was a couple months older Ginny had always acted like a spoiled little brat and when she became the girlfriend of Potter her behaviour escalated even further.

She, when Alex visited Rose during the Summer even accused her that the only reason she came over was to seduce Potter away from her 'one true love'. Merlin that comment had been wrong on so many levels that it wasn't even funny anymore.

Now it seems the girl's delusions had grown even worse as she at this very moment was threatening her to stay away from Harry as he was hers. What was wrong with this girl? She did hear that this was not the same person as her dead boyfriend right? That this was the very man who had cursed her right? Was she some kind of Masochist?

Ginny apparently didn't like her silence as she drew her wand and fired a spell at her.

'Slow,' Alex thought as she couldn't help, but think back at the dodge training Harry had given her and before she realised it her body had moved to dodge the spell and she had pulled her wand. Then while still in her dodge movement she aimed her wand and fired a non-verbal full-body bind.

Alex had only a moment to smugly look down at her fallen opponent before she heard a voice she rather not hear right now.

''Ms Weasley, Ms Black!''

Minerva McGonagall had arrived.

XxX

Currently the still not very happy Alex Black was sitting in what she was told was the entrance room of the Hufflepuff common room. It had surprised her slightly that no one had made a problem of her entering the room as long as she stayed in that part of the common room.

Her surprise however had done nothing to lighten up her bad mood. Getting deducted thirty points for defending herself had definitely put another damper on her already dark mood. At least McGonagall gave Weasley a harsher punishment, but still totally unfair.

Then there was the fact that Harry was nowhere to be found. Rose, who she had asked first hadn't seen him and his year mates told her he was already up before they had woken up. She had then swung by the kitchen (she had managed to convince Harry to tell her where it was) the elves told her he hadn't come by for breakfast; something which caused several elves to cry as they thought they had offended him someway … they really were overly emotional little buggers … still regardless of her foul mood she couldn't bring herself to leave the kitchen like that. Only a heartless person could have left the kitchen filled with crying and near tears elves. So she had to spend the next fifteen minutes convincing the elves they hadn't done anything wrong and that they would see Harry the next day. If necessary she would drag him there herself. There was no way she was going to allow him to make those creatures who have prepared her food for the last four years cry again.

Once she left the kitchen she almost immediately ran into Rose, a rather distraught looking Rose who apparently couldn't find Harry anywhere in the Hufflepuff common room.

This had not pleased Alex. First Harry hadn't shown up, then there were the elves and now Rose? Her first instinct was to search through the entire castle, find Harry and drag him to Rose and force him to apologise for making her distraught and then to the elves for similar reasons, but her rational mind was telling her that Hogwarts was way too big to search for someone if you have no idea where to look and that is not even mentioning the grounds.

So she tried to convince Rose and although she would never admit it out loud herself that Harry was all right saying that after all he had survived he wouldn't be hurt to easily. Alex wasn't sure if Rose had believed her or not, but she seemed to calm down somewhat and said she was going to wait in her common room as that was the most likely place he would return. She had then invited Alex to join her. Said girl was indecisive for a moment, but then agreed.

And that is where they were now; Rose and Alex sitting next to each other on one of couches placed in entrance room of the Hufflepuff common room.

It was at that moment the portrait guarding the room opened and seemingly without a care in the world Harry Potter strode in. He seemed to have spotted them as he made his way over to them, an easy-going smile adorned his face as he approach them.

''Good morning, Alex, Rose.'' He greeted before looking a bit puzzled at Alex as he questioned. ''Is something wrong you look a tad angry?''

It was at this point that Alex could almost hear the mental snap that happened at hearing that specific statement.

* * *

_**Author notes:**_

Hope that the little Harry/Dumbledore debate didn't go on for too long. It was fun to write and I probably should have shorted it a bit, but meh who really cares it was not like not enough other things happened and it did give some more insight in both their characters.

Out of curiosity: if the mirror of Errised was real would you know what you would see before looking into it? I don't need to know what you think you would see, that is obvious private, but in this story Harry did not expect what he saw and I while know I want several things, but my deepest desire? No idea. So I was curious. Would you know what you would see?

For those interested: Harry's retaliation against Snape will be next chapter (see Karma part of title).

**Next chapter: chapter 13: Detention, Quidditch** **and Karma**


	13. Detention, Quidditch and Karma

**Chapter Thirteen: Chapter Thirteen: Detention, Quidditch and Karma**

**Brutal attack on upstanding member of community**

_Yesterday morning __one of the most upstanding members of our community was dropped off naked in the middle of Diagon Alley with a message barbarically cut in his back and a forged dark mark (mark of the followers of you-know-who) on his forearm._

_The one who was attacked was none other than the head of the Nott family himself. Lord Nott (age 71) is well known for his tireless work as a member of the Wizengamot. He is also famous for his donations to various charities._

_The dark wizard who dropped him off wore a hood and a cloak and had blood red eyes. We here at the Daily Prophet consulted a dark magic expert and he suspects the eyes are a side-effect of a dark ritual._

_When asked to comment on this heinous incident, Amelia Bones, head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement had this to say: ''We are currently still investigating the case. Several of my Aurors have been assigned to the case and the matter should be resolved shortly. Until then I have no further comment. _

_Minister Fudge had this to comment: ''Whoever did this will not get away with it. This dark wizard will be caught shortly and will face the punishment it deserves.''_

_We of the Daily Prophet offer our sympathies to the Nott family and hope that they will quickly recover from this attack. _

Harry snorted as he threw the paper down. It was Monday morning and Harry was eating his breakfast in the kitchens. For some reason the elves had been even happier than normal to see him this morning. Why, he did not know, but for his sanity he had decided not to question it.

After taking another bite of his food Harry gave a slightly disgusted glance at the front page. That article was really ridiculous. At the very least they could have included his little message. Oh well … the message wasn't meant for the general public anyway and those who it was meant for had more than enough connections so they probably received word of the incident minutes after it happening.

If they weren't too stupid then they would contact Nott himself for information. Then they would not only learn the message if they hadn't yet. They would also learn that Nott never knew what happened until it was too late. In other words they would learn that whoever the one was who had threatened them could infiltrate their houses and subdue them without them even noticing.

As he took another bite his thoughts shifted to something that had been on his mind for the past few days; His revenge against Snape. Despite all his flaws in personality Snape was unfortunately not someone who could be taken lightly.

Trying to feed him potions was definitely out. He had barely O.W.L level knowledge in the art and Snape was not only a master in the art, but he was also a spy. Something which you don't survive long if you don't understand the meaning of the word caution.

A straight out duel he could probably win. He had done it before against a different Snape, but the problem was Dumbledore. The Headmaster wouldn't take to kindly to Harry curses his little pet-redemption project. No he needed to do something were the blame couldn't be laid upon him.

As Harry was thinking he glanced around the kitchen, looking for anything that might inspire him. Then suddenly it came to him as he watched the elves and with the idea forming in his head a large grin started to spread on his face, one his old teammate Clara would have been proud off.

XxX

Lilly Potter was a nervous wreck. Albus had informed her that her son would serve detention with her for his attack on who she had thought of as her future daughter in-law.

These last few weeks hadn't been hard on her. Her son, the boy who she finally started to accept was dead had been summoned by ritual, but he didn't accept them as his parents. To him his parents were dead.

Lilly couldn't understand that. Her parents had been killed by Werewolves employed by Voldermort and she would gladly haven given up her wand-arm for the chance of seeing them again.

Harry was also so different then she expected. Her rational mind understood that two boys with such difference in upbringing could never end up exactly the same, but to see him in Hufflepuff and hear that he has cursed Ginny Weasley … it was just difficult to comprehend. Then there had been the incident with the train. Harry would never have left like that, but this one, he was for more independent.

She sighed as she rubbed her eyes. In all honestly it hadn't been only the past few weeks that had been hard on her. The years following that fateful Halloween hadn't been easy either. At first it had been wonderful being the parents of the boy-who-lived. In all honestly she knew that she shouldn't have enjoyed the fame like that, but the temptation had been too much.

But not everything had been rainbows and sunshine after that. There were attacks and kidnapping attempts by dark sympathisers. Even a couple legal attempts to remove her children from her care. As for those who opposed them? The light? They put more and more pressure on them to act as the perfect light family. In honesty she knew she shouldn't allow others to dictate how she acts, but there was no denying the hatred the war had left her for all dark things. And while she would not admit out loud or even admit it to herself there was also still that small part of her mind that enjoyed all the attention and she did not want to lose that.

There was a knock on the door and when she called to enter, her son entered, his usual look of indifference plastered on his face as he dipped his head lightly and greeted, ''Good afternoon Professor Potter.''

Lilly sighed, if she was ever going to connect to this version of her son then it would take a lot more than the time of a single detention.

XxX

Daphne Greengrass listened impassively as her little sister rattled on about how the boy-who-lived had to assist Professor Potter as part of some punishment. If the rumour mill was correct then this was because he had cursed Weasley seven for some reason.

Harry Potter arriving at Hogwarts was definitely a unexpected occurrence, not necessary a good one, but unexpected definitely. She had observed the boy when she shared classes with him and it was difficult for her to see him as the same person who she had shared classes with for the first four years of her Hogwarts career. Gryffindor Potter had been so easy to read that even Astoria in her first year could have broken down his character after observing him only for a while, but this Hufflepuf Potter could have easily passed off as one of her housemates. It was rather easy for anyone who took a moment to look that this Potter clearly was not showing what he was thinking and usually wore one of those fake smiles. While recognising that had been easy, reading his actual character was a lot harder. This made him a unknown element and those were always dangerous.

This was one of the reasons Daphne did not like that her little sister's associated with Potter. Either one of them to be honest. After all the dark lord does not play fair and if he has to kidnap someone to break someone else he will do it without hesitation. For now Astoria was protected, but you never know it with that man.

Daphne mentally sighed. If only her sister wasn't that stubborn then she could just tell her what a bad idea it was to stay friends with the youngest Potter and to be even associated with the oldest child, but if she did that then Astoria in her stubbornness would probably just do the opposite. She may have matured these last few weeks, but she still had those 'You are not my mother don't tell me what to do' moments.

So if she couldn't separate them then she had to come up with an actual excuse she could give in her defence.

An excuse for her friendship with the youngest Potter was easy enough. The girl was a descendent of an old pureblood line and she seemed distant enough from her family that their pro-light stance would affect her status much. So she could always claim that Astoria was teaching the girl the 'proper ways'.

The Potter male however … he made it very clear that he was not the same person as her former classmate, but even if he said that there were still a large number of people who hate him simple because he was Harry Potter.

Fortunately he was also due to his behaviour very much a unknown and as much as it irked her that she could not figure him out as easily as his counterpart she could use this. She could just claim that Astoria was information gathering like any half decent Slytherin should do.

In fact the idea bore merit to be more than a mere excuse. Why hadn't she thought of this before? She had noticed Blaise's subtle and sometimes not so subtle attempts at striking up a friendship with their newest year mate and she could never understand why Blaise who she knew was intelligent would do such a dangerous thing so openly. But now she realised it. Potter was without a doubt going to play a major part in the upcoming war and any and all information she could gather before then would be most valuable.

Now the question was how to approach him …

XxX

For the first time in what felt like the longest time Harry James Potter bore a shiteating grin. The reason for that was because he was finally back in the air.

Flying on a broom may contribute absolutely nothing to the war, but Harry couldn't bring himself to care.

Right now as he soared trough the sky he was free, no upcoming war to worry about, no meddlesome headmaster, no need to keep track of different personas, no overly noisy people, no nothing.

He moved the nose of his broom down and sped to the ground all the while his grin was getting wider and wider and just before he was going to make a potential fatal face plant he pulled up and shot back up in the air.

As he regained his previous altitude he hovered for a moment enjoying the sight of Hogwarts in all her glory.

He really needed this; so much had happened, so many times he had to control his emotions and never had he the chance to just unwind. That is why when everyone was eating Dinner he had grabbed his newly acquired Nimbus 9001 and just walked out of the castle and kicked off.

The new broom despite his rather strange name was amazing. Maybe it was because he hadn't flown in such a long time, but from the moment he had kicked off the ground he had felt amazing. His Firebolt had reacted to his barest touch, but this broom had seemed to be on a completely different level.

He had decided there and then that he would attend the try-outs for his house team. He may be a complete idiot for wanting to play a sport that nearly killed him several times, but he reasoned he would find himself in a life or death situation sooner than later anyway so if his life was going to be in peril anyway why not as he enjoyed himself?

Ignoring that most people would not agree with his logic or even consider it logic in any shape or form. Harry continued to hover and relax. As the wind blew past his face, Harry just closed his eyes and relaxed knowing that the moment he re-entered the castle he had to be back at the top of his game.

XxX

Tuesday passed and to Harry's disappointment Umbridge hadn't held him back again. As according to her memories she dropped her truth potion the last lesson Harry had expected to be held back again and score some more Veritaserum.

He doubted his memory charm hadn't worked otherwise he would probably already be rotting in Azkaban, but then why didn't she held him back?

The most logical answer would be that she couldn't get her hands on any more Veritaserum, but he also knew that the ministry had a decent stockpile of the potion at any time. A very strictly controlled stockpile, but a stockpile none the less.

This could mean that the woman couldn't afford others to know that she was drugging students and was probably working alone. This was both a blessing and a curse for Harry. On one hand it is much easier to deal with a single person, but on the other hand people who don't have anyone to fall back to are much more difficult to predict. If she was working for the minister and something went wrong then she probably would report to that man, but now?

XxX

It was Wednesday and after his run Harry decided he had postponed the inevitable long enough and made his way to second floor girl's bathroom. While he would have preferred it that he knew who if it was still out there had the Marauders map. The truth was that unless he had a unbelievable stroke of luck he would never 'suddenly' find it. And if he was going to ask around for it then he had to admit how he knew about the map. Something he didn't want either.

So here he was hopefully too early for anyone to track him and hidden from view by his trusty Invisibility cloak standing in front of the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets. On his back he had his backpack which was filled to the brim with shrunken valuables from both the Room of Requirements and Nott manor.

Luckily it seems Myrtle wasn't in her usual place so Harry could move on undisturbed. After walking over to a familiar sink with a snake engraved in one of its taps Harry hissed.

''§Open§''

The moment he hissed that word the sink started sinking into the ground and a space big enough for him to pass through opened up. Harry paused for a moment and then hissed again.

''§Stairs§''

For a moment nothing happened and then the slide glowed for a moment before it suddenly transformed. The smooth surface of the slide turned into steps of a stair in a matter of seconds.

''Well I be dammed, she was actually right.'' Harry muttered as he stared at the stair that seems to go on forever. '' §Uh escalator?§'' Harry half stated half questioned, but to his disappointment nothing happened.

Harry stared a bit apprehensively down at the stairs. He knew from experience that the way down was long and to be honest he didn't feel like walking down any more stairs so shortly after his morning run. 'Meh screw it,' Harry thought after a moment and hissed. ''§slide§''

XxX

Harry grimaced as he shot out of the pipe and just barely managed to land in a crouch. He immediately pulled out his wand and started to remove the slime that was covering him. He also gave himself a firm mental reminder that on his way back he should transform the slide in stairs and clean them. He did not want to go through that every time he came here.

Now he was clean again he was ready to move on. The tunnel he was in was exactly as he remembered; dark, very dark, so with his wand still in his right hand he started to channel his magic in his left and concentrated his mind on a specific action for a second and then silver coloured flames sprang out of his hand and illuminated the corridor.

He may not like Lupin much anymore after what he did to Tonks and for not taking care of him after his parents death, but there was no denying the man knew some pretty nifty spells. A flame that did not harm the caster and once cast was self-sustaining thus left one free to use magic definitely was useful in situations like this.

Once he could see properly Harry had to bite back the grimace at seeing the sheer amount of bones and other assortment of things of what was left from the Snake's meals.

''Toby!'' He called, but after several seconds of nothing happening Harry concluded that this place was somehow shielded even against elven Apparition. It was no real surprise to Harry. This was after all the chamber of secrets. It would be a really crappy hidden chamber if a mere elf could bypass the need to speak Parceltonge and just Apparite here. He sighed, household charms were not exactly his strong point, but he should be able to do this.

With a wave of his wand and a non-verbal incantation Harry fired a spell that removed all the bones from the floor within his line of sight. The floor still looked filthy, but at least he didn't have to listen to the ominous sound of walking over breaking bones anymore. Besides he could always bring Toby in person down next time instead of trying to summon him, that should probably work.

After several minutes of walking and several repeats of his earlier spell, Harry stumbled upon something that had given his younger self nearly a heart attack.

There lying on the ground was the twenty feet long shredded skin of the so called Slytherin's monster. Intend on taking it with him, Harry fired a shrinking charm on the skin and to his shock and slight awe the spell didn't affect the skin at all.

He knew that Basalisks had a magic resisting skin that was even better than that off a dragon, but to think that shredded skin still contained the same magic resisting properties … . Harry grinned his Dragonhide clothes had been good and he had been saddened that he had left them behind in his own universe, but perhaps he could replace them with something even better.

He decided to leave it there for now and to move on. After walking and cleaning for several more minutes Harry arrived at a familiar solid wall on which two entwined serpents were carved, their eyes set with great, glinting emeralds.

Harry cocked his head slightly to the side as he looked at the snakes. 'I wonder if I could sell those stones.' Harry mussed before hissing. ''§Open§''

The door opened and Harry strode forward. As he entered the room he couldn't help, but gaze at the spot he had nearly died.

Even now nearly half a decade later, Harry could barely believe his twelve year old self … his weak pathetic twelve year old self had survived an encounter with one of the deadliest magical creatures out there.

Merlin! His past self had really been an idiot. You would think that a near death experience in his first year coupled with learning that your parents murderer is still alive and probably wants you death would have been enough for him to take his studies more seriously right?

No he hadn't. In fact to make matter worse after his second year. A year were he nearly died several times again he yet again didn't intensify his studies. In fact when he got to choose electives he choose some of the easiest if not the most useless that he could have chosen.

At least in his third year he went out of his way to approach someone to learn the Patronus charm. Admittedly that was more because he didn't want to lose another Quidditch match, but at least he learned something useful.

Then fourth year came around and Maeve! What a disaster that was. He couldn't even use the excuse that danger found him there. In his previous three years he had more or less dived in danger headfirst with little to no preparing, but now, now he had known exactly when the danger would be. Not only that, but he knew that someone was out there who had put his name in the tournament with most likely less that pleasant reasons in mind. Did he train? Yes. Did he spend every free second he had trying to increase his chances at survival? Not even close. And thus he survived yet another year more or less on luck.

But that year something had changed. He had seen someone else die in front of him. It was kind of ironic; after all the time he himself had nearly died it was seeing someone else die that finally fuelled his drive to improve.

Harry briefly wondered how things would have been different if he had put full effort in his schooling from the beginning. Could he have been strong enough by the time of the Tri-wizard tournament to save Cedric? To stop Wormtail from conducting the ritual? To stop the war before it even began?

Harry shook his head and decided not to dwell on that particular line of thoughts. He had long since decided not to ever mess with time again and he knew that dwelling on the past wasn't particularly healthy. Besides without the threat of Voldemort some of Harry's more fonder memories probably wouldn't have happened either.

Coming back to reality, Harry fuelled his magical flames with some more magic causing them to grow and allowing Harry to see the room a bit better. Not that it was really necessary; the room could easily be described with a couple of words; Dark, gloomy, lots of snake statues and one of a partially ugly bastard.

As he approached the aforementioned statue Harry activated his magical eye to see through the face of statue. What he saw put his mind at ease. The snake was still there. It was lying curled up and apparently sleeping.

As he came closer to the statue Harry could sense the magic on it. The mouth felt like a locking charm, slightly altered, but it felt close enough to the original to easily identify. The magic on the rest of the head was harder to identify however. The closest thing he knew that felt like that was the magic of the sleeping spell. Only this felt like the effect was amped up several times. Some kind of forced hibernation perhaps?

He decided to just leave the snake there for now. He had no idea how hungry the snake was and unless there was an emergency he rather be one hundred per cent sure he could control the potential hungry snake.

Besides the snake was his hidden ace if trouble arrived at Hogwarts. Currently there was nothing here yet that required such drastic actions. Although it was very tempting for him to send it on the likes of Snape and Umbridge.

Alas Umbridge was too much of a high profile to be killed and Snape still had his uses as a spy. Of course those protections wouldn't last forever and he could only not kill them and to quote Dumbledore there are things worse than death.

It had taken him several days to prepare and make sure nothing could be tracked back to him, but Snape would receive his first sample of that tomorrow and Harry was definitely looking forward to it. With a grin on his face Harry started to unload and resize all the shrunken things from his backpack.

XxX

It was Thursday and Harry was sitting next to Rose enjoying his evening meal. They were discussing the Quiditch try-outs that the captain had held this morning before the lessons of the day had started.

Harry had on more than one occasion thought that Wood had been borderline insane, but the current captain of the Hufflepuff Quidditch team was just as bad if not worse. Seriously who would hold those try-outs that early and then in a cheerful voice say that it was to see if they were dedicated.

Don't get him wrong. Harry could somewhat understand the need for dedicated players, but did she even think before blurting that out in front of a bunch of grumbling half-awake hopefuls? Couldn't she if she had to say anything on the subject just say something along the lines that the pitch was booked any other time that week? It was a flimsy excuse at best and probably not very believable when the higher brain functions are engaged properly. But considering how half-asleep everyone still looked they probably would have believed her if she had told them the sky was pink.

Overall the try-out had went pretty well in Harry's opinion. This had been the first time he had seen Rose fly and he had to admit he was impressed. Wood, his former captain was according to many the best Keeper Hogwarts had produced in years and while Rose wasn't quite up to that level she wasn't far off either.

His own flying went well to. Despite not being a seeker for years, it came back as easily as flying in his first year had been. In fact due to his far more sharper reflexes flying went even better than in the year his team become champion.

The results wouldn't be posted until next week, but Harry had high hopes that he would make the team and was almost certain Rose would regain her starter position.

During a lull in the conversation, Harry's eyes drifted through the hall and for a moment and then rested on a particular raven haired girl. Daphne Greengrass; the older sister of the counterpart of one of his former teammates. He hadn't had much interaction with her in either universe. That was until she suddenly confronted him this afternoon after Transfiguration.

XxX

''_Potter, a word.''_

_Harry turned around and looked at who had addressed him. Long hair as dark as his own and icy blue cold eyes that could frighten crying baby's into silences. Yes, Harry easily identified who stood before him, the by her peers dubbed Ice Queen of _Slytherin_; Daphne Greengrass. A girl who wore such a perfect façade that even without doing anything her reputation caused her to be feared even within her own house. _

''_Ms Greengrass,'' He said as he gave her a nod in greeting. ''Is there something I can help you with?'' _

''_Yes,'' She replied her tone as cold as her eyes. ''I heard from my sister that you with two others are working on a Runes project.'' _

''_That is correct, Astoria mentioned she was going to show our work to you for evaluation.''_

_Daphne arched an eyebrow and said, ''You mean your work.'' _

_Harry shrugged, ''Minor detail.'' He said before adding. ''Was there something wrong with it?''_

''_It was adequate, but lacking.'' Daphne said. ''However just because you can create adequate work, I will not allow my sister to slack off. She has informed me that you will start writing your rapport as a group after your Runes lesson. I will be there. I assume that won't be a problem?'' _

_Merlin! This girl must have taken acting lessons or something. He had stared down snakeface himself and even he was feeling a drop of sweat drip down his face as the girl stared him down. Luckily he didn't allow himself to show anymore weakness as he mustered the most natural smile he could manage and said. ''Of course we could always use the expertise of a N.E.W.T. level student.''_

_The girl nodded in satisfaction and stepped past Harry. Just when Harry was about to release the breath he hadn't realised he was holding Daphne turned her head so she was looking him straight in the eyes and if possible her eyes seemed to be even colder as she said the following words. ''__You claim you are different than my former year mate so I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but if I ever even hear a whisper of you treating my sister badly because off her house; I crush you. Am I clear?''_

'_Yep old snakeface has nothing on her' Harry thought as he suppressed the slight shudder. _

XxX

Harry's thoughts were brought back to the present as his ears picked up the sound of the doors of the Great Hall slamming open and he had to fight hard to supress the grin that wanted to form on his face as he thought, 'Showtime!'

Two Bludgers sped through the open doors at a speed that far surpassed their normal speed and both were heading straight toward the head table, more specifically toward the resident potions master.

Luckily for the man he had pretty sharp reflexes and the moment he saw the approaching danger he had jumped up , pulled his wand and fired a blasting curse at one of the balls. The Bludger exploded, but unfortunately for Snape the second ball due to his speed was already too close for another spell. Fortunately for the man another with superior reflexes was sitting close by and just moments before the ball would impact Snape's stomach the ball exploded due to a spell cast by Dumbledore.

To say Snape looked pissed was a slight understatement. In all the years Harry had seen the man this was one of the few times he had seen him lose control like this. Unfortunately for the man the show wasn't over yet and moments later the entire hall's attention was drawn when suddenly the Disillusionment charm that was hiding a large banner hung behind the teachers table stopped working.

The teachers didn't miss the sudden shift of attention of their students and they turned around to look at what the students were looking at.

It took only moments for the entire hall to read the message that was written with a large front on the banner.

_What comes around goes around, Snape. I recommend you curb you behaviour and try to emulate a normal human being, but that is probably asking too much from such a pathetic excuse of a human being …. Oh and I recommend you turn around. _

Snape swirled around and looked confused for moment then that confusion turned to horror moments later when suddenly just a slight distance away from him the Disillusionment charm on a third Bludger faded away.

'Thank you, Toby, that was awesome.' Harry thought as he hear the satisfying crack of bones breaking and the muffled scream of pain.

* * *

**Author notes:**

That Lilly point of view part was really a pain to write. She and James are not the most likeable persons for a reason, but I also didn't want to make her a complete bitch. So somehow I had to justify her actions. Or at least justify them in her own head. She still will not be the most likeable person for the foreseeable future, but then again flawed characters have the potential to grow. While perfect little Marry Sues don't.

For those who wanted to see the actual detention I am sorry. I have tried to write the scene multiple time, but most of those attempts were borderline cringe worthy in how bad they were. So instead I let Astoria recount the story to Daphne. Which had the additional benefit of giving you a small look in Daphne's head.

So this chapter also had the first Harry/Daphne meeting. Probably not what most people expected, but I liked it. For the Daphne fans don't worry she and Harry will get closer, but currently her first and foremost priority is the wellbeing of her sister.

**Edit: **the next update might take a bit longer. It seems my computer has finally died on me. Luckily all my notes and story process were in my dropbox file so at least I didn't lose that, but at the moment I won't have regular access to a computer. Chapter 14 is roughly half-way done so I might be able to finish it before next week, but I can't promise anything.

**Next chapter: Chapter fourteen: September the 19****th**

Chapter Thirteen: Detention, Quidditch and Karma


	14. September the 19th

**Chapter fourteen: September the 19****th**

Today was for many just another school day. If one was to ask one of the students what day it was they would answer things like Thursday, September the nineteenth or the day that was still too far away from the weekend.

Some may even say things like that today was the thirty-fourth birthday of the lead singer of The Weird Sister and even fewer may remember that on this day almost fifty years ago the anti-hangover potion was created.

So to many people this was just another day and most just went on with their days like normal, but as usual there are always exceptions.

One of those exceptions was not Alexandra Black. No her day was pretty much the same as the last two Thursdays she had spent here at Hogwarts.

She got up early. By now she was getting somewhat used to it, but it definitely still classified as early, dressed and headed down to meet up with Harry.

Harry … he seemed a bit subdued this morning. Normally he would quiz her about her knowledge, but this morning he had been quiet and had looked like his mind was somewhere else.

Her lessons for the day seem to be pretty much the same to. Potions that morning had been unpleasant, but then again Potions had never been pleasant for the daughter of Sirus Black. This lesson however things had been even more unpleasant. Ever since that incident in the Great Hall Snape had been on a warpath to capture who did it and as time passed and no one was captured his mood seem to turn fouler and fouler.

After that she had a shared a Herbology class with the Puffs. It had been a nice class. Little theory and more than enough time to talk with Rose about the upcoming Quidditch season. Both of them had secured their starting position and were looking forward to the new season.

After lunch she had her last lesson of the day; Transfiguration class shared with her friend Astoria and her housemates. Speaking of the girl, for some reason her older sister had decided to join them as they did their Runes assignment and damn how could a girl who looked like an older Astoria look so damn intimidating? The girl was a tad strange if she had to be honest. She didn't speak much and when she did she usually did it in that tone that send shivers down her back. Still she did have some useful information to add on occasion so she wouldn't complain. Although she would admit she thought some of the questions she had directed towards Harry were a bit strange.

Currently she was on her way to what she had been told was called the Room of Requirements. She had been recently shown the room by Harry who said that while in the morning they would run in the evenings he was going to teach her how to last more than ten seconds in a duel.

She probably would have been more offended by that remark if not for two points. Firstly that was more or less how long she had lasted the last time she went up against him and secondly he had said that the moment he had shown her the room and her mind was a little preoccupied by what she had been told about how the room worked.

The 'lessons' themselves were … well let's just say she could now last longer than ten seconds. Provided that Harry used his off hand for casting and did all his spell work verbally. She understood that she wouldn't suddenly become an accomplished duellist in a matter of days, but the damn those sessions had been slightly frustrating. Especially considering that patience was not exactly her strongest point.

Before she knew it she had reached the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy. She glanced at the blank wall opposite of the tapestry for a moment and shook her head while thinking. 'Only here at Hogwarts we have secret rooms hidden behind blank walls. What's next a secret passageway hidden away in the showers?'

She looked around to see if anyone was around. Once she concluded that she was alone she walked three times past the wall while requesting the 'training room'.

Once the door opened she quickly entered and as soon as she entered the room the door on both side disappeared. This however was not something Alex had noticed as for one this was normal and second and more importantly the room did not look like she had expected.

Normally it was just a large room that was big enough to manoeuvre, but had nothing else in it. Now the room looked like a warzone. Some kind of weird smoke hang in the air and the floor was littered with stone debris .

''What the hell happened here?'' Alex muttered as she scanned the room for any sign of life. It took her a bit longer than it should due to the smoke, but then she spotted a humanoid figure sitting against one of the wall with next to who she assumed was Harry stood what could only be a house-elf.

As she walked closer her nose wrinkled as the smell of alcohol penetrated her nostrils. As she looked at the cause of the smell she couldn't help surpass the wince that appeared on her face.

There sitting against the wall was indeed her somewhat friend Harry Potter and to put it mildly he looked like hell. He was dressed in what he usually wore when he was teaching. A similar outfit as what he wore during their morning runs, but that was not what made her wince. It was the numerous small cuts that covered his arms and face. Considering all the debris that was lying around she had a pretty idea how he got those. Worse yet was his eye; bloodshot and slightly glazed. The bottle of Firewhisky in his hand didn't miss her notice either nor the empty one laying on ground.

While she must have stepped directly in his line of sight he either didn't notice her or was ignoring her. This was the first time she saw him so of guard. If she wanted she could probably take her revenge for all her loses right now without any problems, but she also knew that a victory like that would be extremely hollow.

She glanced to the side and saw that she had identified the small figure from earlier correctly as a house elf. The elf seem to have taken some kind of defensive stance and was staring at her suspiciously. 'He is protecting him.' She realised.

She then spotted the Hydra on the uniform of the elf and realised who it was. 'That's Harry's personal elf, Toby.' She thought, 'No wonder he is so protective.'

''Harry,'' She cautiously called out. ''Are you okay?''

The caution in her tone was in her opinion not unfounded; a bottle of Firewhisky may be in one of his hands, but in the other he had clenched his wand and she had no idea how an intoxicated Harry would react.

Harry's eye seem to focus somewhat and his visage turned to a frown for a small moment and then it was gone and his usual mask of neutrality had replaced it. He then raised his bottle in a sign of greeting and said, ''Hey,'' before putting the bottle back to his mouth and taking another gulp.

Alex's eye twitched as she stared down at the young man that had seemingly went back to ignoring her again. She pulled her wand from her wandholster on her arm with significantly more speed than at the start of the summer and pointed it at the seemingly intoxicated person in front of her before exclaiming. '' Aguamenti!''

It took her only a couple of seconds to realise that her rash course of action might not have been her brightest idea. Moments after the water had left her wand she had suddenly felt a strong pull at her ankle and moments later she was hanging in the air upside-down. Worse yet a perfectly dry Harry was now staring at her with a somewhat amused smile at his face. Hovering in front of him seemingly having caught all the water was a large bucket.

''Well done,'' Harry said somewhat mockingly. ''Attack first and when you opponent is least expecting … at least you remembered that. But,'' He said as he flicked his wand in the direction of the bucket causing the bucket to launch its contents back at its sender. ''Drawing your wand so slowly and doing the spell verbally? And what the hell was up with that spell choice?''

Alexandra flushed. She wasn't sure what was worse; being outmanoeuvred like this again and scolded like a little child, the way her t-shirt hung to her body due to the water or the fact that the blood was really starting to get to her head.

Luckily for her before the last problem could become to pressing issue her body made another half turn and suddenly her feet touched the ground again.

Knowing who was responsible for putting her down safely she quietly muttered. ''Sorry,'' as soon as she felt solid ground. ''It looked like you needed a wake-up call.'' She barely manage to supress the wince that had wanted to appear at hearing her own bad excuse.

Harry merely snorted, but didn't comment on the issue further. Instead he once again put his bottle to his mouth before saying. ''You can go now there are no duelling lessons today.''

Alex frowned at hearing that. She may not know Harry for that long, but obviously something was wrong with him. There was no way the normally always composed Harry would act that way without reason. Should she ask what was wrong? Wouldn't that be too noisy? Had that ever stopped her? No not really, but usually she was only noisy with friends and family.

Then again despite the moments he annoyed her she did consider him somewhat of a friend, but on the other hand she hadn't the faintest idea what was troubling him and to be honest after hearing about all the things he went through she wasn't so sure if she even wanted to know.

She thought in silence for a split second and then glanced at Harry again and at seeing the state he was in she made up her mind. Under the watching eyes of the elf she positioned herself in a sitting position next to Harry and waited.

After five minutes of silence Alex started to fidget and Harry barely spared her a glance as he spoke, ''If you wanted free alcohol you just had to ask.''

Alex blinked. ''Huh?''

Harry tilted his head to her side and hefted his still half full bottle up and said. ''This. That is why you stayed right?''

Alex nearly huffed in indignation at that accusation, but managed to refrain herself. ''I am not here for your alcohol, besides I am underage.''

Harry merely shrugged, ''So am I or at least I am in the Muggle world.'' He said before asking. ''So? Then why are you here then?''

''You look like shit.'' Alex stated bluntly. ''What kind of fr- person would I be if I left you in such a state. Look even your elf seem to be worried about you.''

Harry's gaze moved away from her and turned to look at his elf before snorting in again. Silence reigned again for several minutes as Harry just stared in front of him. When the silence was broken Harry asked a question Alex had to admit she did not see coming.

''Do you believe in karma?''

Alex blinked in surprise at hearing that question, 'did she believe in karma?' What kind of random question was that? Well at least the silence was broken and maybe this had to do with what was bothering him?

''I never really thought about it.'' She answered truthfully before adding. ''Why?''

Harry smiled ruefully as he answered. ''Today my friend Hermione would have turned 18 …. she was a good person, a bit bossy, but always ready to defend those who couldn't defend themselves. I have no doubt she would have scored an outstanding on all her N.E.W.T.s and would have made a difference in the world after her graduation.'' At this point he felt silent and the smile disappeared completely. Then after several moments of silence were Alex wasn't sure if she should speak up or not Harry continued. ''But she didn't; she didn't go and score 9 outstanding N.E. , she didn't go and reform the ministry. No instead she had to burry one of her best friends shortly after she nearly died herself, she had to flee out of the school and was forcibly enlisted in the militia. Shortly after that she learned that her parents had been killed while she had been detained. Then shortly after that her streak of misery ended when she and the rest of her newly formed team encounter a group of Death Eaters.''

Harry voice lowered as he continued. ''She deserved better than that. All of them did. Yet here in this world no one know about their sacrifices. Here to those who even remember Hermione was just a noisy bookworm Muggle-born who left in her first year. ''

Alex remained silent as she listened. To be honest she wasn't sure what she could add to this. The issue was definitely on a completely different scale than the average problems of a teenager. Then suddenly an idea popped in her head. ''Why don't you make something so that anyone can see their sacrifices? Like that monument in the ministry that is for those who died during the blood war.''

She got so wrapped up in her own idea that she had already pulled out her wand and started waving it around in semi-complicated motions while muttering words under her breath.

After she was done she had to admit she quite liked the result of her spell work. She had used the already available debris and transfigured it in a single stone cubic. The top she had coloured black while the four other visible sides were now white. On top of each side was now the animal representing each of the houses of Hogwarts. Right below each animal a single line was engraved in a black and elegant script.

_In remembrance of those who lost their live fighting for the light, may they rest in peace_

After nodding in satisfaction she realised she might have gotten a bit caught up in the moment and glanced at Harry to see what his thoughts were.

Said young man was alternating between giving her and the stone monument incredulous stares. Once he noticed she had turned to him he asked with the same hints of incredulously in his voice as on his face. ''Do you seriously think anyone will give a fuck about people died in some different world? And here I thought you weren't that naïve.''

Alex shook her head. ''There will be there who will care and even if there might and I repeat might not be many, but as you said they deserved to be remembered right?''

Harry shook his head and a look of resignation appeared on his face before he muttered something that Alex didn't catch and she had the distinct feeling it was better that she didn't anyway. He then pointed his wand at the monument and several beams of magic left his wand.

Alex watched as Harry changed having one animal at each side into all four slightly smaller on each side. He also added a miniature Hydra quite similar to the one the elf bore on his uniform. After that he added the weapon of the ministry of magic and the Auror office. Lastly he slightly changed the line that had been originally under the respective house mascots. It now read;

_In honour of those who lost their lives in the fight for freedom, may their souls find peace beyond the veil._

''Are you going to add any names?'' Alex questioned.

Harry nodded and with a wave his wand two names appeared on the monument.

_James Potter; The man who fought a unwinnable battle just to buy his family some time_

_Lily Potter; The woman who gave her life even after given the chance to live._

''I know that there are probably tons of monuments out there both here and back home that mentions them, but those two died so that I can live. It would feel wrong not to mention them at something I created.''

Alex nodded absentmindedly as she stared at the two names. She did not particularly like Rose's parents, but the feelings she got now as she looked at the two names were hard to describe.

Harry waved his wand again and three more names were added bellow the two Potters.

_Hermione Granger; the brightest witch of her generation _

_Ronald Weasley: The man with the emotional range of a teaspoon, but with a heart of gold_

_Hedwig: loyal companion and friend_

Assuming that because they came immediately behind his parents and he already spoke highly of the Hermione girl she assumed the three must be important to him. She briefly wonder who or what Hedwig was and had to repress both a snort of amusement and disbelief at the description of the male Weasley.

''Close friends of yours?'' She asked tentatively.

Harry continued to stare at the name for several more moments before he nodded. ''Ah … Hermione, Ron and I we were close friends for the most part.''

''The most part?''

Harry shrugged, ''Our personalities were far from perfect and on more than one occasion we clashed. Ron especially had some trouble watching what he said and that usually caused problems.''

''Yet you were friends with him?'' Alex questioned not seeing how anyone could be friends with Ronald Weasley regardless the universe.

''You could say that my friendship with him is complicated.''

Alex nodded sensing that the topic was closed for now. ''And Hedwig?''

A wry smile appeared on Harry's face at the mention of his very first 'friend'. ''She was my owl. Incredibly smart bird even by post owls standards.''

Upon hearing this Alex was tempted to question what happened to the bird, but considering that he was on a monument to remember the death she had the tact not to. Instead she remained silent and allowed Harry who had seemingly sunken in thoughts his moment of peace. Then with another wave of his wand more names appeared.

_Dean Thomas: The one who was weak, yet so incredibly strong._

_Kevin Baker: Never forgotten_

_Su Li: The girl who slayed a giant with a knife_

_Melinda Strange: The one who was afraid yet didn't hesitate_

_Morag McDougal: the girl who lived without regrets_

_Jamie Potter:_

''The-boy-who-didn't –get-to-live huh?'' Harry muttered so quietly that Alex although she was sitting right next to him could barely hear him.

As Alex read the names she easily identified the first name as a seventh year Gryffindor. She also recognised the name of her Hufflepuff year mate easily enough. Once she reached the third name she had the read the additional text several times to make sure she wasn't misreading anything. How could anyone let alone a girl she knew for a fact was smaller than her win against a giant with a knife? She decided she probably didn't want to know for now and focused on the next name. That one she had a bit more difficulty with, but then she remembered her second year and how she had heard that name during the sorting. That would make the girl a fourth year and probably not a Claw. The next name on the other hand she could easily identify as Morag McDougal was another one of her housemates. The next name however caused her mind to go to a screeching stop causing her to almost not hear the already quietly spoken words that had followed the engraftment.

Potter? As in the same family as the boy next to her? As Rose? Off all the names thus far this one definitely caused her wanting to ask questions, but one glance at Harry was enough to cause several red flags to go up in her mind that told her this was definitely not a topic to talk about.

After a brief mental battle between her curiosity and her common sense she made a compromise and decided not to ask about it directly. Instead she asked. ''You were close to them?''

In response he brought the bottle back to his mouth. This along with the look in his eye made Alex realise this was definitely red flag territory.

At seeing the look she put a hand on his shoulder causing him to turn to her and asked, genuinely concerned. ''Are you okay?''

Harry gave in Alex's eyes a clearly fake smile as he answered with his near patented , ''I am fine.''

The Black girl clearly did not believe him, but she decided to let the matter rest for now. Since entering the RoR she had learned more personal information about the young man next to her than in the time between now and her first meeting with him. There was no need to say something that would make him clamp up now.

After more moments of silence just when she was about to remove her hand Harry spoke up again. ''Those six were some off the people I had sworn to protect, but couldn't.''

A somewhat awkward silence followed that statement. As blunt as Alex could be she knew that blurting out the first thing she wanted to say was probably not the greatest idea, but in all honesty what can you say at hearing something like that? In the end she decided not to say anything instead she gave his shoulder an encouraging squish and gave him a look that he hopefully would understand as that if he wanted to talk she would listen, but she wouldn't pressure him on this.

Either Harry didn't understand or he didn't want to talk about it because with a another wave of his hand several more names had been added and Alex let go of Harry as she refocused on the monument. The first name she read however caused a near similar reaction to the one she had once she read the last one of the previous group of names.

_Sirius Black: He lived as he died, A Gryffindor to the end _

_Dobby: the free elf_

_Fred and George Weasley: Together even in the end_

_Ted Tonks: He who fought for his beliefs_

_Andromeda Tonks: The woman who went against her family for the people she loved_

_N. Tonks (she-who-shall-not-be-named): loving mother and friend _

_Teddy Tonks: Robbed away to early_

_Fleur Delacour: Teacher, friend and defender_

Alex continued to stare at the name of her father. She understood that the Sirius Harry knew was not her father. Hell she already knew the Sirius in his universe was dead, but to actually see it on a monument like that …

Then she felt a hand on her shoulder and after she had forcibly removed her eyes from the sight of father's name she turned to Harry to see he had a somewhat apologetic look on his face. ''I am sorry I can understand you might be slightly unnerved seeing some of those names.''

Alex blinked, 'Some?' She hadn't gone past the first name what other names had he added? She turned back to the names on the stone. Doing her best to ignore her father's name she started scanning the other names.

A elf? Weird, but obvious not connected to her. The twins, the former top pranksters/bullies of Gryffindor and rivals for the Quidditch cup, but other than that also no connection. The next four names however she did recognise. Well the last name at least. The members of the Tonks family were cousins of her from her father's side.

The Tonks family had always been relatively close and were regular guests at Black manor. She had always gotten along pretty well with that branch of her family especially so with Tonks (she-who-shall-not-be-named indeed) so while this didn't feel as much as seeing her father's it was still unpleasant to see the names.

Then her attention turned back to the last Tonks name. She was relatively sure that she never had heard of a Tonks with the name of Teddy. Then she looked again at both the additional lines of Tonks and Teddy and she came to a startling conclusions

'Holy hell! Tonks was most likely the mother of Teddy.'

Now don't get her wrong she was sure her cousin would be a great mother one day, but Tonks always seemed to be a bit immature to think an alternative version of her was a mother!

'I wonder who the father is' She mused. As far as she knew Tonks wasn't seeing anyone right now so this was definitely an interesting development. Then again Tonks was a Auror and the child carried the Tonks name so maybe it was better not to ask.

Time passed as more and more names were added to the monument. Sometimes Alex and Harry would exchange some words about the ones who had been put on, but most of it was spend in relatively silence. As Alex saw more and more names being added she made a silent vow to get as strong as possible so that she could prevent as many deaths as possible here.

* * *

**Author Notes:**

I know that this may seem like filler to some people, but Harry needed this. I know I could probably have summarised it one or two paragraphs, but this felt too important to just rush.

**About the underage drinking: **I know that in the UK you need to be 18 to drink, but let's face it how many teenager drink before that? If I remember correctly even in DH Harry had something to drink after their 'brilliant' escape from Private Drive. Besides Harry needed something to loosen his tongue a bit.

**About Daphne: **a number of reviewers are complaining that a battle-hardened Harry shouldn't be scarred of Harry. First of Harry is not scarred of her slightly unnerved yes, but not scared. Harry is human and unless he uses his occlumecy to fully supress his emotions he will feel things.

Next chapter we are going to have a little time skip and we will head straight to Halloween. Harry will finally start making good use of his money and he will meet another familiar face from the past.

**Next chapter: Chapter fifteen: Halloween**


	15. Halloween

**Chapter fifteen: Halloween**

''Hello Harry Potter.''

Tilting his head in the direction of the voice who had addressed him the seventeen year old scanned the person who had spoken for a potential threat. He was immediately put on guard by the fact that the person was hiding, going by the rather feminine voice, her face under a hood.

He also had the feeling that he had heard that voice somewhere before, but he couldn't immediately place it. Any thoughts regarding whether he knew the person that was standing a short distance away from him or not left his mind the moment the person spoke up again.

''Or do you prefer lord Riddle?''

Harry's mind blanked. How this person knew something he had wanted to keep secret at all cost for now he did not now. Nor did he care. At the moment his mind only told him a threat to him was standing in front of him and his body reacted.

Seconds after Harry's mind had identified a threat his holly wand was in his hand and a red coloured spell left it an even shorted time after that. Harry didn't stop there however, he immediately fired the same spell twice more each aimed at the only humanly reasonable dodging spots.

Harry watched in slight horror as the female did not pull a wand and cast a shield. Nor did she dodge the way he had anticipated. She did dodge, but the speed and grace she did manoeuvre shouldn't have been humanly possible. In fact he only knew one humanlike race that could move like that …

'Fuck, a freaking vampire was standing way to close by!'

Almost on instinct Harry started backpedalling away, but it was futile as the distance between him and the vampire was way too close to begin with. Before he could fire of another spell the immortal had bridged the distance between the two and managed to grab hold of Harry's wand harm and pull it up.

''Now that wasn't very nice was it?'' The vampire mocked.

Harry barely registered the words as his thoughts were focused on something else. His foe was either arrogant or incompetent as it made the apparent mistake that he was defenceless now that he couldn't use his wand. She should have finished him off while she still could and not start gloating. Now she had given him enough time to unleash something he had managed to master since starting self-training in the Room of Requirements.

The moment his right hand went up Harry focused on the flow of magic inside of him and channelled it to his left hand. He focused and moulded it. For that brief moment his entire mind was dedicated to the task.

Then a blue flame sprang forth from his hand. Harry slightly cringed at seeing the flame. The flame was attuned to his magic and wouldn't hurt him, but the same couldn't be said for when he had been training to master it. He had been burnt more than enough times by those very flames that the mere sight of it caused a flinch. This however did not slow him down and the moment the flame was there he moved his hand to where it would cause the most damage … with other words he threw a left, handed punch in the direction of the hooded vampire.

But just before he could make contact something happened that seemed like an act of fate herself; a sudden strong gust of wind blew the hood of the vampire off.

Seemingly in slow motion Harry's hand continue moving as his mind filled away the physical characteristics of the now revealed vampire.

_A girl seemingly his own age_

His hand moved slightly closer.

_Platinum blonde, borderline white hair._

His hand almost made contact.

_That damn infernal smile_

It was at this moment he realised who he was facing and for a moment his concentration faltered and with it the wandless spell.

As the flame in his hand died out and he merely slapped the girl instead of burning her head, Harry's mouth moved seemingly on his own accord as he muttered. ''C-Clara?''

Totally unaffected by the smack to the head the aforementioned girl grabbed the wrist of the arm she hadn't been holding yet and forcibly pulled it down. She then pulled his wand arm down and gave his wrist and strong squeeze forcing him to drop his wand in pain. Clara then leaned forward and whispered in his ear. ''That wasn't very nice either…. Activate''

As Harry felt the distinct tug that was associated with his least favourite mode of magical transportation. He was cursing himself for screwing up like that and a small part of his mind was wondering why he hadn't seen something like this coming considering it was Halloween.

**Ten minutes earlier**

Dressed warmly in his winter clothes Harry Potter slowly walked through the village of Hogsmeade. Today was October the 31th. The day know as Halloween to many, but to Harry this date held so much more significance.

It was on this date that his parents had given their lives so that he may live, the date he became friends with his most loyal friend, the date the Chamber of Secrets had been opened, the date his name came out that thrice damned Goblet and … the date that the massacre happened.

To be honest Harry wasn't entirely sure why he was here. It may be a Hogsmeade day, but considering that he was free to leave the castle whenever he pleased he could visit the village anytime. So why had he followed his schoolmates out to the village?

If Harry had to guess then he would say it was nice to see all those students mingle around without a care in the world. It brought a sense of normality to him that he had sorely lacked those last month and half.

Harry sighed as he made his way to the outskirts of the village, following the same route he had taken back in his fourth year. While it was somewhat relaxing to see something as normal as students on a typical Hogsmeade day. He still wasn't very comfortable in crowds and as such he had moved away from the busiest area.

As his body turned to autopilot Harry allowed his mind to wander. Time had really flown by since that moment in the Room of Requirement with Alex on Hermione's birthday. He hadn't been drunk that day, but he had definitely consumed enough to loosen his lips.

Harry had mixed feelings about that day. As a rule he didn't open easily and especially not to people he only knew for a couple of weeks, but he could not deny it felt nice to talk a bit about it and while he still thinks no one in this universe will give a fuck about some monument for the fallen from another world. Seeing it in the RoR definitely served as a motivator during his training sessions.

The time between that day and today he had been busy, incredibly busy. Not wanting to lose his chances at obtaining his N.E. he had diligently attended all his required lessons and done all his homework. He also continued to have weekly additional lessons with professor Babbling to better understand the Runes used in the ritual. He was making some progress in that aspect, but the road to understanding was still very long.

Speaking of Runes; He, Rose, Alex and Astoria had received a O for their first project and now they were working together again. The second projects was significant harder than the first and the array was definitely not one he could draw from memory nor in five minutes like the last.

Astoria's sister also continued joining them in the library whenever they worked on the project. She was an interesting girl he had to admit. After his first meeting he more or less got used to her and she didn't unnerve him as much as before.

In all honesty he wasn't even that sure why he had been that unnerved back then. He guessed looking back it was because the girl had resembled the Astoria he remembered as she just had joined the team. A visage no normal student should wear. He wasn't sure what had happened to cause her to look like that, but in the end he decided it wasn't that important for now and let the matter rest.

It didn't take him long to figure out exactly why she was here …. she was fishing for information. She was subtle Harry had to admit. Never once asking directly about something, but often spending several minutes steering a conversation in a certain direction so that if she asked something it seemed rather innocent. It was a lot more subtler then most of the others who had questioned him that was for sure.

It was also highly amusing for Harry to see the interaction between the two Greengrass sisters. To say that Daphne was overprotective of Astoria would be a slight understatement. It was funny how Daphne had that whole you don't want to mess with me attitude, but once it came to her sister her whole attitude completely changed. It never once came to his mind that the fact that a part of his mind observed this interaction and filled a possible weakness of a peer away was not something a normal person his age would do.

Of course there had been training, lots and lots of training. His wandless skills had improved slightly. Not drastically enough that it would make a difference in battle, but at the least he was making progress again.

Teaching Alex had also been productive. She seemed to have found herself a drive to improve and the progress she has made since then had been pretty impressive. She probably wasn't ready to duel a Death Eater one on one and she was most certainly not yet ready to face him, but there was definitely progress.

Then there had been his Quidditch training. It really was good to be back on a broom … although he could do without the bright yellow robes. The art of seeking came back pretty easy to him and due his position being a pretty solo position he didn't have to worry how to click with the team. This showed when they managed to crush the Slytherin team during the first match of the season with an overwhelming 310-40 win.

That day he also had his first encounter with Draco 'I-am-going-to-tell-my-father' Malfoy. Surprisingly enough he had kept his mouth shut the entire match and now Harry thought about it. It was highly out of character for the Malfoy he knew that he hadn't confronted him by now. That was definitely something he needed to look into when he had the time.

Unfortunately time was not something he had. Besides all the things he did at Hogwarts he had also started his most ambitious and time consuming project to date.

Surprisingly it had been his uncle who had given him the idea for the project. Since coming to this universe he had collected a pretty sum of money. His uncle during one of many rants complaining about … well pretty much anything that isn't himself or his family complained about people who were hoarding money. He had been to young back then to understand half what his uncle had been saying and at that time he had only been hoping his uncle wouldn't direct his anger at him, but something he had said had stuck with him.

Money needs to keep moving or the economy will suffer. While not completely relevant to his situation there was something that did apply. Sitting on his money while only using a small margin of it to supplies was extremely wasteful.

The only problem was; what to do with it? He didn't trust the Goblins and even if he did they probably would laugh him in the face before throwing him out if he requested interest.

He knew Muggle banks did have interest (not much if his Uncle were to believed), but his knowledge of the Muggle world was just too limited to risk it. He could move around in the Muggle world without making a fool of himself like many of his fellow magicals, but when it came down to it he had only a bit over a decade experience in the Muggle world and as such he hadn't the faintest idea how to avoid suspicion when he transferred Magical money to Muggle money.

So if depositing it at a bank for interest then what? He had mulled on that idea for a while and it had come to him as he was thinking about another problem … the fact that they were so woefully outnumbered if conflict came.

At first his thoughts had jumped to mercenaries. As far as he knew there were no mercenaries in Magical Britain, but he also knew that if you knew where to look and had the money there would always be people who were willing to follow your orders.

Unfortunately there were several major problems with that idea. First and foremost it was his money and he didn't get anything in return. The second issue was most defiantly loyalty. Most hired help would probably only remain loyal until they found someone better paying or they found some way to take all his money for themselves. Thirdly they weren't really useful until there was actual open war.

So while mercenaries were defiantly out. Harry wasn't ready to scrap that entire line of thought just yet. The fact of the matter was that they still needed additional people and money was a langue practically everyone who understood the concept of money spoke.

Then after nearly a week of thought it came to him. The magical world had the concept of security trolls, but there was no such thing as a human version. Why? He honestly wasn't sure. Trolls were dumb and easily beaten by wizards so why did no one ever create a security company?

As the days passed and the details were outlined in his head Harry got more and more excited by the idea. If the idea worked then he could recruit people without suspicion and hopefully make some profit with it.

As his thoughts on the idea came more refined he also knew just who to approach first. The answer to that question was actually pretty simple … the Muggleborn. They both had a reason to take up wands against Voldemort if the need arose and they were the group of people he knew had the hardest time finding good paying jobs within the Magical worlds.

Of course some had time passed between the planning stage and the time the newly founded Hydra Enterprise had opened his doors, but surprisingly it wasn't as long as he had expected.

This was mostly due to his first recruits. Due to finding out that a lot of the people he had known in his universe were more or less the same here as long as his counterpart hadn't interacted to much with him. Harry had decided to hunt down some familiar faces and observe them from a distance with his Invisibility cloak and with the help of his elf. Yes he knew that was rather creepy and he sure as hell made sure to avoid certain areas, but the fact remained screening was necessary as blind trust equals death.

The first person he had approached was none other than the counterpart of his old teacher; John Bell. The man had been a newly retired Auror in his universe. Here however he had already been retired for two years and just like his counterpart this man was not one to sit still. So one he had approached him with an offer as an instructor for a newly founded company the man had obviously been doubtful due to his age (and probably his coming back from the death thing), but he at least was interested enough not to throw the door in his face.

The ensuing conversation had been challenging for Harry. He hadn't wanted to tell too much until he could get a better read on the man, but unfortunately the ex-Auror had a pretty good sense when it came to telling if the entire truth was told.

At first he had tried to sell his cover story. The fact that he had capital and wished to invest it in what he saw to be a hole in the market.

The former Auror had muttered something that sounded something close to 'bullshit' before being swatted on the shoulder by a woman who he had been introduced as Mrs Dora Bell.

Having seen that the man clearly did not believe him, Harry decided to use another tactic and started telling half-truths. It was already a common fact that he was from another universe and the fact he fought in another 'goblin rebellion' probably had also already spread. So he just went with his. 'I am setting this up because I fear that another rebellion will happen here and I don't think the ministry can handle it.'

From his lessons with the man's counterpart Harry had learned the man hadn't had the greatest opinion of his former employee and it seems this version didn't either as he gave a brief smile at hearing that and had replied with.

''Okay I am pretty sure you are still holding something back, but I can't deny I am not interested. What exactly are you planning?''

The resulting talk did not only got Harry his first two employees in the two Bells. He had also managed to get them to sign a binding magical contracts he was planning to have each of his employees sign. Basically they couldn't give away any company's secrets (among those was the identity of the true owner of Hydra Enterprise) and while still under contract they couldn't attack him unless in retaliation.

For obvious reasons it was also decided that John would be the public face of the company for now. Shortly after that the company had been registered and thanks to the Bell's connections they had managed to file the paperwork in such a way that it would take considerable time and effort to find out just who the owner was of the company.

After that screening and recruiting had intensified and today the company counted eighteen employees. Fifteen of those were pretty young. People who had only left Hogwarts for a couple of years. They were old enough that they had learned how the Magical world worked, but they were young enough that teaching them should be easier. The fact that they were cheaper helped to of course.

John Bell was the primary combat teacher. Dora Bell had been a medi-auror before her retirement and often assisted her husband during his time teaching. He had also hired a third instructor. He hadn't been sure on that one as he had never met the person before, but she had come highly recommend by his primary combat teacher and from what he had observed she was competent and she did sign the contract just like everyone else so Harry guessed he shouldn't worry so much.

Surprisingly considering just how short they had been open they had already found work. Not much, only a single client, but by dividing his people into three groups of five and sending them on eight hour shifts he had managed to earn enough money to pay for his people. He wasn't making profit, nor would he see a return for the money already invested anytime soon, but at least the drain on his resources had stopped.

By some strange twist of fate it was actually his due to his lord Riddle persona that the company had found work.

Shortly after his visit to Nott manor he had visited the homes of two more minor Death Eaters. This time he had gone a step further and after scavenging their homes for valuables he had burned them to the ground. Their of age inhabitants were after a lengthy interrogation left behind in the houses. As an act of mercy he had stunned them before leaving. Trough leaving them behind in a full body bind had crossed his mind.

A couple of days after the near simultaneous attacks on the two homes. John had been approached by a man Harry knew due to interrogation of his former colleagues to be a Death Eater. The man had been literally terrified of 'the-demon-who-could-walk-trough-any-ward (Harry had not been amused when he heard he had received yet another ridicules name). The man was completely convinced that he would be next and as he couldn't trust his wards anymore and was now looking for more personal protection.

Luckily for Harry the man was both desperate and had money. Due to this he was willing to pay a fee many would probably consider outrageous. The only downside was that they had to sign a contract that stated they had to protect his property during the time he had hired them. A pretty clever move Harry had to admit. After all people are so easily bribed and it was not like his company had a reputation.

He knew his company needed to grow as it was borderline suicide to go up against Voldemort and his followers with his numbers, but for something he just recently founded he thought it was going very well and if the reports from Bell were to believed then the students were very eager to learn.

XxX

Unbeknownst to Harry while he was deep in thought two people in that very same village were discussing him. Sitting in one of the private rooms were two individuals who each bore more than a passing resemblance to each other.

The older one of the two didn't look too pleased as she listened to her daughter.

''So even after all you learned from visiting his dreams you are still no closer to him?''

The younger of the two tried hard not to look away as she replied. ''Despite how he portrays himself he is not stupid mother and does not trust easily.''

The older woman snorted derisively. ''Of course he wouldn't if even half of what you told me is true then he would be an idiot to trust blindly, but don't forget you have skills and knowledge at your disposal that he shouldn't know about, use those. Don't waste what your heritage has gifted you.''

The girl looked uncomfortable at hearing this and the woman looked even more irritated at seeing the weakness. ''Listen.'' She nearly hissed. ''That boy is going to be important. His sudden reappearance was without a doubt for a reason. No one, especially not that old fool would even attempt to use a ritual to summon something in this day and age and I raised you better than for you to have missed the signs. So win his trust and get close to him. Do you understand me?''

The girl nodded, her eyes downcast, ''Understood mother.''

XxX

Somewhere else in the village walking side by side were a fifth year Puff and her year mate Claw. Those persons were Alexandra Black and Rosaline Potter.

As they walked in a comfortable silence Alex couldn't help, but smile as she thought back at these last few weeks she had spent at Hogwarts. After taking that vow back in the room of requirements she had really tried her best to improve as fast as possible. In her opinion she had done pretty well. She still couldn't win against Harry, but at least she hadn't suffered anymore humiliating loses since then.

Speaking of the young man. He seemed to have opened up somewhat since that incident. Not as in actually talking about his past kind of opening up. No she had the feeling he thought had said too much back in the RoR. It was more like he showed more emotions when they were together instead of that blank look usually wore.

While she would have loved it to ask some questions (especially just who Jamie Potter was) she knew he probably would default back to his original behaviour around her and she really did not want that.

As they turned a corner Rose suddenly asked, ''Hey isn't that Harry?'' the question brought the slightly younger girl out of her thoughts and she look to where her best friend was pointing.

As Alex looked to where Rose was pointing her smile disappeared and was replaced by the frown that now adorned her face. Standing there with his back to them was indeed Harry, but he was not alone. A blonde girl was also there and she was seemingly whispering something in Harry's ear.

Then seemingly as if sensing someone was watching her the girl looked up and straight into her eyes. Then the girl smirked at her and for a moment Alex felt the sudden urge to pull her wand and wipe that smile away, but that moment was lost the moment the girl said the word. ''Activate.'' And both she and Harry disappeared.

* * *

**Author notes:**

Not really happy with this chapter. It is missing something, but I am not sure what it is. I also utterly suck at naming things so if any of you know any better names for his company than please either review or PM and I will edit this chapter.

**Next chapter: chapter sixteen: Not so sweet 16**


End file.
